A Year In Letters
an invitation to join me in lighting paper candles amidst gale winds
[W]riting is a labor of love and also an act of defiance, a way to light a candle in a gale wind.
(Alice Childress)
Dear reader,
Growing up, my sisters and I were awful at writing thank you notes (much to the dismay of our very proper, very English grandmother). However, what did come easily was good old conversational letter writing. Each of us possesses, tucked away amidst in storage, a bin or a box of the letters which flew back and forth between us or arrived from friends, pen-pals, cousins, and aunties with whom we were in correspondence.
These weren’t run-of-the-mill cards purchased from drugstore racks and pre-printed with a sentimental message. These were closer to epistles, sharing news and carrying conversation threads across months. Receiving a letter wasn’t a matter for glancing attention, it was an invitation to enter a state of digestion. And digest we did. At least, we did until we grew up enough to realize how few of our peers were still writing letters.
I’m both young enough to have witnessed the saturation of personal tech from an early age and old enough (or tucked away enough) to have experienced life with landlines and glacial-pace dial-up internet only. As I moved into my teen years, I started noticing how much surprise seemed to follow the idea of actual hand-written letters being introduced to a conversation. “Why would you bother?” came the repeated inquiry. “Texting is so much simpler.”
There’s certainly accuracy to that statement when considering day-to-day arrangements and time sensitive transmission of information. But texts are hardly an appropriate substrate for relationship. Relationship—a necessary element in the weaving of community—requires tangibility and texture. It requires that which can be touched and tasted, smelled and felt. And, in a culture in which those who linger close to the heart seem to attain distances ever farther afield, a handwritten letter remains a gently defining movement in the direction of relationship rendered less abstract, more physical. To receive a letter is to touch the same hands which wrote it, which cannot be said for digital communication in any form.
It bears saying that a practice of letter writing does not necessarily mean consistently receiving letters in return. The correspondence of my childhood, holding slow motion conversation across long spans of time and almost always receiving reply, have been replaced more frequently now by occasional cards and notes which are written in the knowledge that I may at best only receive a brief text in response, a confirmation of receipt more than anything else.
But the happiness which arises when someone else takes the time to set words on paper and send those words my way? when someone else puts pen to envelope to add my name, and sees to it that the envelope is delivered? The occasions may be rare but they have made me a contented gambler in writing indeed. To receive a letter is to receive delight; to send a letter (especially if it is a particularly entertaining letter or includes some happy anecdote or a beautiful sticker or bit of art or a much-desired recipe) is to reach across miles in a way that the ever-issuing spatter of cell transmission simply cannot.
The Invitation
It is this that brings me to a break from usual subject matter. Beginning in the first week of January 2025, I am committing to writing and mailing one letter per week, for a grand sum of fifty-two letters by the time January 1st, 2026 rolls around. Because communal effort tends to feel more joyous than solitary effort, I am extending the invitation for you to join me, in whatever capacity you so desire.
For some of you, fifty-two letters might feel unattainable. For others, it may feel like an absolute breeze of a commitment. I’m somewhere in the middle: fifty-two letters feels doable, but not exactly easy. And I’ve lived just long enough to have found that the sweet spot between “uncomfortable” and “impossible” is where ordinary magic happens. The magic, in this case, being the act and the outgrowth of reaching of an ink-stained hand from one human to another.
Once you'd sent [a letter] it was gone. It was an object that no longer belonged to you but belonged to your recipient to do with what he would. You tended to remember the feeling of what you said more than the words. You gave the object away and left yourself wit hthe memory. That was what it was to give.
(Ann Brashares)
The Support
For the duration of 2025, I will be sending out monthly Substack notes exploring a particular aspect of personal correspondence in greater detail and offering inspiration for your own letter writing practice (and mine). These will be housed under the tab A Year In Letters 2025 on the main page of this Substack.
If you choose to participate, or are not participating but want to receive the twelve letters accompanying this endeavor, no subscription changes are needed in order to receive them directly to your email. If you do not want to receive them, you can adjust your subscription settings by unchecking the Year In Letters subcategory to your main subscription.
For the sake of fun and for greater ease in keeping track of letters already written, I have created printable bingo cards (with and without prompts). They are included below for you to download and use freely below. One card holds squares for fifty-two weeks, the other for twenty-six.
The Substance
This invitation is not a test, and the effort is not something to add to a stack of half-hearted attempts which then become an invisible albatross around the neck. There is no right way to begin or end, so long as you show up in some capacity if you do indeed choose to join me in this endeavor. This project is, among other things:
An exercise in showing up for other people and for ourselves, in a way that combines creativity and care.
A stretching of the limits of our own desire to lean on inspiration over discipline, perfection over consistency, and ideal execution over reality.
Tangible expressions of warmth and conviviality sprinkled in fifty-two different directions through the course of 2025.
An exercise in self-trust: assessing personal capacity, making a personal commitment, and doing the private work of showing up.
If you can’t think of fifty-two separate people to whom you’d like to send letters, I invite you to still commit to a full fifty-two weeks of letter-writing and simply divide the letters between as many people as you can (sending some recipients several letters through the course of the year).
If fifty-two letters sounds like a version of self-imposed hell within your current stage of life, either due to the time investment or due to the attention required, I invite you to choose a number that feels a little uncomfortable but still doable and commit to that instead.
If you despise writing letters and think the whole idea is straight-up poppycock, don’t. Pick up cards instead, put five encouraging or thought provoking lines and the name of your recipient inside, then pop it into a stamped envelope and send those lines fluttering on paper wings to their human (or not-so-human) destination.
A letter is never ill-timed; it never interrupts. Instead it waits for us to find the opportune minute, the quiet moment to savor the message. There is an element of timelessness about letter writing.
(Lois Wyse)
If the letter-writing part feels easy but the recipients are hard to find, I invite you to explore the following list for inspiration:
A note of acknowledgement and thanks to a helpful neighbor or a local farmer/butcher/food-grower.
An illustrated letter to a child.
A love letter to a beloved (romantic or otherwise).
Encouragement for a spiritual leader in your life.
A letter of appreciation to a local farmer or shopkeeper.
A letter to a long-gone friend, reduced to ash in a flame once written.
A note to rekindle acquaintance with someone you enjoyed but haven’t connected with for years.
A letter of encouragement to someone experiencing hardship.
A letter to your son or daughter’s future self.
A letter to you at this point next year.
A letter to a grandparent (or, if they have passed on, a letter to an elder in your circles).
A letter to someone who has done you a service.
A letter to someone who gave you a meaningful gift.
A letter of support to someone who has taken on a difficult or tedious obligation.
The potential recipients for your handwritten words are abundant, and a desire to compose and mail a letter will lead to discovering a surprising number of people to whom you might write if you so choose.
You might begin to think of individuals who would appreciate a hand-addressed envelope, who might feel remembered and valued deeply even by the smallest and brightest of messages.
You might begin to remember individuals who perhaps have not heard of the gratitude or admiration you feel for them.
You might begin to recall something entertaining, something left out of the flow of digital information-sharing, which another might smile to read in intimate privacy on a mundane weekday.
And who knows. As you embark on sending your hand-composed missives into the world, you may even begin to receive letters in reply.
Are you in? Is this an initiative that sparks your excitement as it does mine? Feel free to let me know in the comments, or via email or DM. Or, if you so choose, participate, alone or with a friend, and keep it as a secret all your own.
With warmth and love,
Jan
P.S. If you are lacking material resources for letter writing, I invite you to explore the following links for unique cards, beautiful stationery, and satisfying pens (my very favorite). (Please keep in mind that all you truly need for a letter is a writing implement and a piece of paper, followed by an envelope and a stamp to set upon it.)
I was first introduced to the botanical work of Catherine Lewis by my dear cousin & the owner of Laureli Cottage, who stocks beautiful cards locally alongside her own handcrafted leather jewelry. Other notable card-crafting artists include Katie Daisy, Kelly Louise Judd, and Meraylah Allwood. I also enjoy getting stationery sheets from Florentine Shop.
As for pens, I have used Pilot’s rolling ball pens (very black, extra fine) for the last decade, and find them most enjoyable. My only complaint is that they are terrible for air travel, since they are certain to leak after being airborne for more than several hours.
[R]eal letter-writing ... is founded on a need as old and as young as humanity itself, the need that one human being has of another.
(Agnes Repplier)
Credit to whom credit is appropriately due:
for her weekly column on analog family-based living in a digitally-captured world. (Particularly relevant to letter-writing as a practice are On Reclaiming Leisure, Does It Need to Be Said?, and The Tale of Tara’s Cookies.) and for liberally sharing clear written patterns from their life for the creative work of community. Their recent posts on practices for connection and care, including the walking rebellion, feasting and festivities, and communal exploration of Dickens' classic A Christmas Carol, have stoked the fires of enthusiasm in my heart for this particular initiative. for his storytelling around the the relationship inherent to life and the practice of reintegrating humanhood into Life. You may find that reading his letters on living within a matrix of consciously observed invitation, gift, and obligation might serve as heartful orientation as you address letters of your own to those you know and love. (Try Longing for Home in a Displaced Time, What if we were needed?, and Extending Welcome to the Unchosen.)I also invite you to explore Maria Popova’s marvelous Letters category on The Marginalian, where she generously illustrates the letter-writing lives of many a literary figure in pieces such as the following:
I’m inspired! I will join you! ❤️
This is such a beautiful idea. I have been writing mini letters to my baby daughter in a notebook, here and there to document milestones and funny moments. I plan to gift it to her when she herself gets pregnant or otherwise comes of age. I had intended to write atleast once a week in the notebook and don't quite meet that goal but when something especially touching happens I get it down on paper for her to reflect on through my eyes in the future.
I love the sentiment that relationship needs to be textured-- touched and felt! Beautifully written as always.
I'm not sure if I'll commit to the 52 letters but I plan to write at least a couple to some friends who have recently moved overseas, in addition to continuing these mini reflections for my daughter.