It’s called Letters in the Mail and you can subscribe here. Every two weeks, you’ll receive a letter, in the mail. In the first three months letters went out from Stephen Elliott, Margaret Cho, Marie Calloway, Dean Haspeil, Lorelei Lee, Matthew Specktor, Rick Moody, Aimee Bender, Padma Viswanathan, Sari Botton, and Matthew Zapruder. Some of the letters were typed, others handwritten. Some included illustrations, one was a comic, all were signed. We then photocopy the letter and send it to you. You can view sample letters here and here.
Upcoming letter writers will include Leigh Stein, Douglas Kearney, Camille Dungy, Colin Winnette, Brandon Hicks, Wendy C. Ortiz, Anna North, and many more! Think of it as the letters you used to get from your creative friends, before this whole Internet/email thing. Letters will include return addresses (at the author’s discretion) in case you want to write the author back. Letters in the Mail helps us keep The Rumpus running—so, you can correspond with your favorite writers and support the website in one fell swoop.
And it’s only $7 a month (domestic), cheap! You can also purchase a year of Letters in the Mail or a 6-month subscription. And if you live outside of the United States, you can purchase an annual or 6-month international subscription.
Letters in the Mail makes a fabulous gift! Imagine that special reader in your life receiving a letter (in their physical mailbox!) every two weeks. They can be letters from old favorites or from new authors destined to become old favorites.
Missed your favorite author’s letter? We are now offering past letters available for individual sale.
I still write letters by hand, either to avoid writing something else or to jump start the creative juices. The great thing is no matter what happens you have a letter. Then I photograph the letter and type it out, because nobody can read my handwriting. But they see the picture of the letter and know. But what do they know? And what do I know? Has anything changed?
–Stephen Elliott, Rumpus Founder/Editor-in-Chief and creator of Letters in the Mail
For customer service (i.e. missing letters, change of shipping address, etc.) contact brian AT therumpus.net.
Want more child-friendly letters? Check out our Letters for Kids program, which delivers letters from your kids’ favorite writers twice a month!