Correspondence
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The Poem Must Forgive: E. J. Koh’s The Magical Language of Others
Empathy and forgiveness must begin with understanding.
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Dreaming of Oscar
Katherine you must come to my table. I’ve got Oscar Wilde there. He’s the most marvelous man I ever met. He’s splendid! Over at the Paris Review Daily, Dan Piepenbring posted an excerpt from Katherine Mansfield’s 1920 letter to her…
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On the Auction Table
The supposedly lost letter from Neal Cassady to Jack Kerouac that inspired Kerouac’s novel, On the Road, was found in 2014. Now, the letter is being auctioned off: The 16,000-word typed letter, which carries an estimate of $400,000 to $600,000,…
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(K)ink: Writing While Deviant: Ames Hawkins
Is it really that human capacity is limited? Or are we limited by what it is we believe we are able, and allow ourselves—are willing—to see?
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Letter From Woolf Costs A Pretty Penny
For the Guardian, Alison Flood reports that a letter from Virginia Woolf to her friend Philip Morrel will go to auction with a guide price of £1,000-£1,500. The letter tells of Woolf’s experience during the Battle of Britain and urges her friend…
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Weekly Geekery
Email is evil… Which explains why Millennials like it so much. Probably. Speaking of Millennials, they get a fancy new, techy bookstore in London. So, that’s nice. Quitting Facebook makes you happier.
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“We Are Not Robots. We Do What We Can.”
Without readers, for better or worse, writers would have no one to answer to but themselves. But readers sure do ask a lot of questions. Now, writers are asking this question: Shouldn’t there be a way to say, without any…
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The Last Book I Loved: The Delicacy and Strength of Lace
In letter-writing, we are not really talking, but the words represent the deep-heldness of our communication.
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The Last Book I Loved: Dear Lil Wayne
During the eight months he was sentenced to Rikers Island, a poet named Lauren Ireland wrote postcards to Lil Wayne. The rapper never responded, but the writer compiled them into a tiny purple book.
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Chekhov in His Own Words
All that is nonsense though. Write what you like. If you haven’t facts make up with lyricism. In 1892, Anton Chekhov sent a letter to V. A. Tihonov including a fictitious 200-word bio. 123 years later to the day, the…
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Austen Family Letters
The LA Times reports that unpublished letters and poems from Jane Austen’s family have been acquired by the Huntington Library. While none of the letters are from Jane Austen herself, the correspondence will still “provide valuable insight into Jane Austen…
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Peeking at Leaks
The joy of reading other people’s mail is a well-known, well-documented phenomenon. Inspired by the Sony data hack, Lydia Kiesling investigates the pleasure of looking at famous people’s personal correspondence over at The Millions.