Letters To Everyone
Letters To Each Other was a huge success last month (see A Letter To The People Who Wrote Letters To Each Other). People sent in one letter and received six back, but it was only open to subscribers to Letters In The Mail. This time we’ve decided to open it up to everybody.
There are two ways to participate.
1. You send in a letter, single page (double sided OK) and include a regular size #10 self addressed stamped envelope. We’ll make copies of all the letters and send five letters back to you in the stamped envelope you provided. Please include at least $2 to cover the cost of copying, pizza for envelope stuffers, etc. We’d really appreciate it if you could include more than $2 to help us get by; things are a little tight at The Rumpus offices.
Easy peezy. Send one letter, get five letters back.
Send your letter to: Karen Duffin, 3288 21st Street #202, San Francisco, CA 94110.
Letters must be postmarked no later than June 15.
If you don’t live in the United States please make a donation using Paypal for at least $3. Print out the receipt for your donation and include it with your letter and self addressed envelope. International letter writers don’t need to include a stamp on their return envelope.
2. The other, easier way to participate is to come to the Celebration of Written Correspondence this Monday in San Francisco. We’ll have typewriters and envelopes there so you can type your letter on the spot and address an envelope to yourself. We’ll even stamp it for you.
If you want the people who receive your letter to write back to you then you should include a return address somewhere inside the letter. But remember, if you do so you are sharing your address with strangers.
Woo-hoo!
May 30th, 2012 at 3:37 pm
How do you want the two dollars?
May 30th, 2012 at 4:18 pm
If we send you FIVE self-addressed stamped envelopes, will you send the five letters separately within each envelope? (I know, there’s always at least one person who wants to buck the format. I guess, this time, it’s me.)
May 31st, 2012 at 11:33 am
Smedette: Cash, check, paypal, anything is great.
Fred: The problem is that the letter stuffing is pretty much an assembly line, so it’s hard to track that it’s one guy and five envelopes instead of five people with one envelope each (if that makes sense). We got almost 300 letters last time and we expect double that this time. So … forgive us, but, we can’t really customize the process. But we promise to stuff the letters as gracefully as we possibly can.
May 31st, 2012 at 1:42 pm
So- I guess I am very intrigued by this idea. I have a desire to do this- but I don’t know how to open up to a stranger and what to put on there. It makes me so vulnerable knowing that I have to care about everyone on the planet as a friend. Does that makes sense? Would the fear of caring about everyone be a silly reason to not write. I hope to find the time and resolve to make this a reality for me.
May 31st, 2012 at 5:58 pm
What the letter should be about? Anything specific?
June 1st, 2012 at 8:50 am
Hi jman – Having gone through the first round, I feel I can say being real is more rewarding. More rewarding to send, and more rewarding to receive. You should be safe, and take care of you, and not give away information that you feel is too sensitive. You don’t have to tell your deepest darkest fear or secret. Share an ideal, a funny story, a sad story, but if we’re voting? I vote real
[sidenote, as long as I'm posting: I still owe letters & I'm still workin' on 'em]
June 3rd, 2012 at 3:01 pm
Is it OK to type these, or should they be handwritten?
June 3rd, 2012 at 10:16 pm
I’m *totally* challenging myself to do this. Yay.
And I wanted to mention that I really appreciate jman’s comment above, and I really hope he participates. Make the time! Resolve yourself to do it! I think we’ll all benefit.
June 4th, 2012 at 7:46 am
How awesome is this?? I remember when penpals were common- I wrote to a little girl in China for a while.
I’m so excited!
June 4th, 2012 at 3:28 pm
I really enjoyed my 6 letters last time, but I’m sorry to report I have yet to get a letter back from anyone after receiving the initial supply from the rumpus. Of the 6 I got, 2 didn’t have return addresses, and of the remaining 4, I only felt compelled to reply to one, so i suppose many people similarly didn’t bother to write back to me. Still, now I am curious… am I the only recipient of this grand experiment that never got a response to my original letter? (sob)
June 4th, 2012 at 3:29 pm
Oh, and also… would it be poor form to resend my original pen pal letter to the new open round?
June 5th, 2012 at 7:03 am
Jen: Myself, I love a typewritten (or computer-written) letter. You get more words per page and they xerox better. But I got both kinds, handwritten and typed.
Mim: You’re not the only one. It’s still early days, though. I didn’t get any answers to my initial letter. Then I wrote back to all six. I got one letter back in response to my response-letter, which was great.
You could try writing back to everyone, with one page or even just a postcard. Even if you still don’t get a response, the effort of figuring out what to write to that person can make their letter appear more compelling than you gave it credit for at first.
How cruel would it be if no one had answered your question about whether anyone else had not been answered?
June 5th, 2012 at 1:27 pm
i’m taking forever to write back to people, have only completed one response letter so far, but i’m in the middle of two others.
June 5th, 2012 at 3:34 pm
Somehow I was sent more than six letters last time…and I wrote back to all of them…but I’m a nerd. Haven’t heard back from anyone, though. My mailbox is sitting oh, so lonely…
June 5th, 2012 at 10:51 pm
ALAA: Letter can be about anything you want. Having read all 296 of the last round of letters, trust me, they’re about almost anything you can imagine.
JEN: Lots of people typed it last round. Some because they had terrible handwriting, others I think because they wanted to compose it. The handwritten ones are fun, though, since that hardly happens anymore. But it’s totally up to you.
MIM: You can resend it if you want. But how much cooler if you wrote something new??
JMAN: You should do it. It’s fun.
June 5th, 2012 at 11:05 pm
I live in Asia. I’m not sure how fast my mail would get to The Rumpus HQ. When you say, “Letters must be postmarked no later than June 15,” does that mean that I have to send them by the 15th, and it would be okay even if my letter arrives there two weeks later?
June 7th, 2012 at 11:35 pm
Hey JMan. I sent a letter last round and debated including my home address. I went for it… and I got a marvelous letter that responded deeply to mine. It was rather astonishing to get a letter from a total stranger who opened up about her life and encouraged me in a profound way, in direct response to the vulnerability I showed in my letter.
I saw this unfamiliar envelope in my mailbox (not in-box but REAL mailbox), dropped my purse and all else and sat on my sofa and read it immediately… and found myself crying, that kind of sudden-sob, quick-heart-release feeling of Wow, I was *heard.*
This isn’t to say that you’ll get a letter back, and you could write the most shattering masterpiece of a letter that includes your home address and receive only radio silence… but why not open to the possibilities?
Now I’ll write back to the woman who wrote me.
June 11th, 2012 at 8:39 pm
1.) My letter is written! I have yet to gather the 2 bucks and the 2 stamps, but soon enough it’ll be in the mail (headed to some place in my own zip code).
2.) I can’t give more than $2, but I CAN help stuff envelopes. I’ve been doing it since I was 8 and my mom worked at a non-profit. So basically, I’m kind of a big deal in the trifold world. Could you guys use extra hands?
June 13th, 2012 at 11:29 am
So, can we just send $2 in the envelope or do we have to get a money order or what? I’m pretty excited about this.
June 14th, 2012 at 10:26 pm
If you need volunteers for the stuffing, please let me know! I live in SF.
July 2nd, 2012 at 1:02 pm
Are you no longer doing Letters to Everyone? Is it replaced by the subscription letter from a single author sent to all who subscribe? Hope not. Just received my envelope of (4) letters and loved their random discursiveness — just like real letters! Please keep this going. I saw at once how replies to the ones who included addresses would be specific, sharing the commonalities of our lives, a chance at conversational exchange I doubt the more “official” subscription letter will provide. Seem to me far less interesting than the pleasure of randomly striking sparks of connection. So keep Ltrs to Evryone alive!
July 2nd, 2012 at 5:41 pm
Four letters have arrived today and made me smile and cry a little. They give enormous pleasure and a sense of connection. Every single writer included a return address, which I appreciate so much. Every single letter, whether it recounts daily life or profound experiences is both an act of faith and a gift. It may take me a while, but I will answer them all. So, thanks to The Rumpus for making this possible. The next time — and I dearly hope there will be a next time — I will include my own return address, rather than wimp out with an email address and, like my dear, new correspondents, I will have the courage to close with love.
July 3rd, 2012 at 6:58 am
I just got my letters yesterday, but only two of the writers included a return address. I wrote them both back right away, so if anyone from round one is bummed that they didn’t get a response, feel free to write me! I am good at sending mail.
efelger at gmail dot com.
July 5th, 2012 at 10:01 pm
I got my letters today. Some did not include a return address, but two did, and then crossed them out. Coincidince? Both cross outs look like they were done with a different color pen than the writer used for their letter? Is it cold feet? Did someone at the envelope stuffing party decide to blot out addresses? ( I don’t actually think that one happened) Anyway, its a bummer.
July 6th, 2012 at 10:55 am
I didn’t subscribe or participate but judging by some of the profound emotional reactions it seems like the US Postal Service is less of a leech on the Federal budget than many suspect, and the cold internet is a poor substitute.
July 6th, 2012 at 9:15 pm
i received my four letters last week, and i got goosebumps reading them. people who included a return address will receive replies. i also have received one marvelous reply to my letter! please, please, please do this again. imagine if the whole world started to see everyone as that? as every*one. all people. thank you!!!
July 8th, 2012 at 12:59 pm
one handwritten – one old typewriter – two from printers arrived yesterday. only one letter writer was from san fran the others from az, ny, la. 3 women and 1 man told an unknown but fellow letter writer about their lives, loves, work, worries. All amazingly included their return addresses so I will most certainly write back – now i’m happy i added mine as a ps to this letter writing rumpus…….
September 8th, 2012 at 8:37 pm
Howdy – any way of bing notified if/when this happens again? I missed out this time, but would love to participate. Thanks!