How to Find Penpals (Pen Pals)

My sister phoned, asking me how to find penpals for her 9-year-old daughter. This wasn’t completely out of the blue. I still have a box full of penpal letters I received all the years I wrote letters to people around the planet. I’ve got coins from other countries. I’ve got postcards too. But, I haven’t really looked at any of it for years.

I stuck with it for several years. I even met the man I ended up married to through penpal writing. That’s a long story. Now I’m looking for the next generation to start up with letter writing, finding friends by mail.

When I wrote my first penpal letter it was going to someone working in a factory where they canned pineapples. My Mother had picked out the address from the back of a can we bought at the grocery store. “Do you want to write to someone in Hawaii?”

So we sent a letter to that address. I got a reply back. I wrote to “Sushi” for years, though we never met. We wrote as we grew up, we wrote as she got married and had children. I didn’t get married until much later. At some point we stopped writing. With only one of us married and having children we just had less in common to write about.

The next time I wrote to someone it was from a penpal zine. This was before the Internet. The penpal zine was pretty cool really. I don’t know who started it (and there was actually a few of them by different people). It was created as a booklet, photocopied and stapled together. Inside were listings from people all over the world who were looking for penpals. Some of them wanted to write to people from specific countries. Most of them seemed to be from the US or Australia. Each person wrote a bit about themselves, who they wanted to write to and gave their mailing address and age.

Find penpals for young people

Find penpals of all ages

Safety Tips for Penpal Exchanges

Never go anywhere to meet a penpal (for the first few times) without an adult.
If a penpal writes something rude, or anything a kid shouldn’t be sending – tell your parents, a teacher, or another adult who can help you.
Don’t accept or send photos your parents wouldn’t approve of.
No one should be asking for your email password or your phone number. Don’t give it out.

Should Spelling be Understood or Guessed At?

What are your thoughts about spelling: traditional or mutable?

Consistent spelling was a great way to ensure clarity in the print era. But with new technologies, the way that we write and read (and search and data-mine) is changing, and so must spelling.

Instead of trying to get the letters right with imperfect tools, it would be far better to loosen our idea of correct spelling.

Standardized spelling enables readers to understand writing, to aid communication and ensure clarity. Period. There is no additional reason, other than snobbery, for spelling rules. Computers, smartphones, and tablets are speeding the adoption of more casual forms of communication—texting is closer to speech than letter writing. But the distinction between the oral and the written is only going to become more blurry, and the future isn’t autocorrect, it’s Siri. We need a new set of tools that recognize more variations instead of rigidly enforcing outdated dogma. Let’s make our own rules.

The above quoted from the post by Anne Trubek at Wired: Proper Spelling? Its Tyme to Let Luce

From the Wired Editor’s perspective: Spelling: A Rebuttal from Wired’s Copydesk

For the Letter Writers

I’ve written about letter writing before: Letter Writing and Letter Writing Fading to Black.

But, it’s time for another look, to see what’s new, what I missed and just for the sake of the letter writers themselves (they who need to be appreciated).

“Letter writing is the only device for combining solitude with good company.” – Lord Byron

Resources:

Letter Writers Alliance – (Blog) (Twitter) (Flickr)

Flickr: The Art of Letter Writing

Letters & Journals

The Missive Haven

A Year of Letters

Letter Lover

The Letter Writing Revolution

365 Letters Blog

The Letter Jar

Going Postal – You can’t get far (literally) with letter writing without the postal service/ snail mail. Yet, it’s becoming less necessary for communications. During the latest postal strike here in Ontario many people wondered how clever the postal workers union was to strike now. People are already using the service less due to the Internet. How long will it take for the post office and snail mail to become a hobby for letter writers and otherwise not very practical for business and communications in general.

Save Snail Mail – (Twitter)

Viva Snail Mail

Twitter: Postage Service – “Perpetuating the beauty of postage stamps through practical & artistic applications!”

Smithsonian National Postal Museum

The British Postal Museum

Save the Paper – The debate about the possible demise of paper communications (books, newspapers, letters and any others of the like) is ongoing.

(From Domtar) Paper Because

Domtar is committed to the responsible use of paper. We’re also committed to communicating paper’s place and value to the businesses and people that use our products every day. Paper is a sustainable, renewable, recyclable, plant-based product that connects us in so many ways to the important things in life. Great ideas are started on paper. The world is educated on paper. Businesses are founded on paper. Love is professed on paper. Important news is spread on paper.

Letter Writing Fading to Black

When did you last write someone a real letter?

This is what my nephew, Zack, asked me last week. One of his friends said she would really love to get a letter in the mail. So Zack wrote her a letter and sent it to her through the mail. It will be a very nice surprise for her one day this week.

I used to write letters to my older relatives, the Grandmothers and their sisters (my Great-Aunts). The last of them have been gone for years and it’s been about that long ago that I wrote a letter. Unless letters sent with Christmas cards count, I haven’t written a letter just for the sake of writing a letter in seven years I’m guessing. Kind of sad.

I know my nephew and nieces would love to have a letter arrive in the mail, kids always do. But I probably won’t write one. Email is so much easier, takes less time and doesn’t require postage or stationery.

The loss of letter writing is something we shouldn’t take too lightly. If you think about it, when was the last time you wrote anything by hand? A list doesn’t count. I wonder if someday penmanship, cursive writing and just plain handwriting will become something no longer taught in schools, no longer thought of as mainstream or of much importance at all. We type things far more than we write them out in long hand. This is good for some things, it is more accurate, less likely to be misread. It’s faster too.

People talk about print becoming something in the past. But, I take it a step in another direction and I can see handwriting becoming a lost art, a forgotten skill.

By the way… do you know which is which between stationary and stationery? Stationery, with an E, is the one for letters and envelopes which tend to come in pretty patterns in a pretty pattern box. Just think of the E which is also in letters and envelopes. Stationary with an A is about staying still.

I like this quote from The Art of Manliness, about letter writing:

The writing and reception of letters will always offer an experience that modern technology cannot touch. Twitter is effective for broadcasting what you’re eating for lunch, and email is fantastic for quick exchanges on the most pertinent pieces of information. But when it comes to sharing one’s true thoughts, sincere sympathies, ardent love, and deepest gratitude, words traveling along an invisible superhighway will never suffice. Why? Because sending a letter is the next best thing to showing up personally at someone’s door.

Extra Resources:

365 Letters – A blog about letter writing, mail art and postcards. Carla says: I’m a writer who has taken on the ambitious project of writing a letter every day in 2009 as a way to keep in touch with all of my friends and family.

Letter Writers Alliance – An organization dedicated to keeping the art of letter writing alive. World wide membership.

The Modern Letter Project – “It is our hope that, at end of the year each participant in the project will have a network of new pen pals, friends, and a collection of letters to treasure, and as a group, the art of letter-writing will explore new intersections between letter-writing with art and technology.”

Flickr: The Art of Letter Writing

Flickr: Letter Lovers

Query Letters

We’re writers, we know the words, so why is it so tough to write a query letter? Why do we second guess every word on that page? Why do we agonize over the punctuation, the grammar and the spelling? Why do we “just die” when we realize a typo was missed in our proofreading of that all important query letter?

Because we are bundles of self conflicted maniacs. Geez… I thought you had that figured out by now. Anyway, I thought it was time I wrote something about query letters. We know how important they are, giving prospective editors and publishers (clients) that vital first impression. Plus, of course, the actual idea you’re pitching them.

A query letter is a proposal, describing an article or book you would like to write for a particular publication or publisher. Queries should be kept short, a readable length, one page. A couple of paragraphs to sell the story, a line or two to actually ask for the sale and another paragraph to describe your qualifications.

If you get no reply after a month send a follow up letter. Of course, you kindly ask if they read your first query and remind them of the particulars. You know yourself how hard it is to catch up with an idea you brushed against a month ago. Keep that in mind as you write your follow up. Make a copy (or keep a copy) of your letter. You’ll sound foolish if you finally hear from the editor only you don’t remember what you queried about, exactly.

The basic elements of a query letter:

Start with something to catch their interest and make them read on. An anecdote, statistic or something you can enclose in the envelope along with the letter. Chances are you won’t have anything to send other than your words but if you can come up with something more go for it.

In a paragraph or two explain your idea, why you want to write about it, why their publication would be interested in publishing your article. Gear your idea to the market you have chosen. Of course, you have already spent time picking out your target market. Make sure you also get the editor’s name right (and spelling counts!) and the name of the publication. This would also be an important part of researching your market.

Draw them in with your special angle, slant or hook on the topic. It’s likely true that everything has already been written about at least once. So you need something new to say about it or say the old stuff in a new way. Show them how your slant is new and interesting. Let them know if you can include photographs or other illustrations to go along with your article.

If you have clips (copies of previously published articles) offer to send them. Remember, you’re selling yourself too. Add any other credentials that would help. Are you an expert in the field or have some related experience?

How many words will your planned article be? The editor will know how much space they can offer and you’ll have to work with that. But, start by giving them an idea of what you plan, how much content you can provide. Tell the editor what format you will be using- plain text email, Word document, double spaced, etc. Maybe these seem trivial things at the beginning but to someone working on filling space and keeping a layout they matter and make life easier.

If your query isn’t being emailed or faxed you need to send a SASE (self addressed, stamped envelope) for return mail. This is part courtesy and part hoping making a reply easier will make it happen sooner. We always have our wishful thinking, they can’t take that away from us. Also, make sure the editor accepts email queries, some people still don’t like or use email. Email queries should also have an email signature which sticks to the rules of email etiquette: not more than 4 lines or approximately 60 spaces wide. Please, don’t send an email where your return address shows up as “CutsiePie69”. Unless you’re writing about online chat or some such thing you want to project a professional image. That means no smilies too.

In the end sell yourself and don’t be too modest. What makes you the right writer for this job? How can you (especially) bring this story to life for their readers. Enclose your writer’s resume if you have one and it seems relevant enough.

Don’t forget the letter writing basics. Add your return address and the date to your letter. Start and finish your letter with salutations, something suitable, not too personal. Don’t forget to proofread and proofread without using spellcheck on your computer. Be meticulous, even down right nitpicky, check your spelling, punctuation, grammar and the typo factor. Don’t ever send a query letter you haven’t checked more than a few times and don’t ever write one when you’re too tired (or just not in the mood) to check it as well as you know you need to.

Query Letters

The basic elements of a query letter: