vive la snail mail!
Sunday, June 27, 2010 by sarah-ji 
Dear Shutter Sisters,
Shortly after I posted here about wanting to get back into the habit of writing letters and using photography to facilitate that, I got a Facebook message from Mika, a member of the Shutter Sisters community, about something she was participating in called The 100 Postcard Project. According to the website, it's "a grassroots initiative to revive the art of personalized, material human connection through the writing of postcards and letters. Collaborators on this project aim to write 100 postcards or letters in 100 days, between May 22 and August 29, 2010, artistically rendered or otherwise." I got excited that other people were interested in snail mail, too! And then a week or so later, a friend of the family began sending us postcards. I started sensing a revolution brewing...
I received my gorgeous photo/postcard from Mika last week, and it was such a lovely feeling to receive something with my name handwritten on it, knowing that it was meant just for me, not a mass message to an email list or a blogpost for an anonymous audience. It made me wish that more people could experience this for themselves. Then this week, when I read Amy Krouse Rosenthal's Mission of the week--to pair up her readers as pen-less pals (e.g. the digital version of pen pals), it clicked...Snail Mail Shutter Pals for Shutter Sisters!
So here's how this will work. If you would like to start exchanging a photo and/or letter/postcard/note with another Shutter Sister, leave a comment below with a functioning email address [in the email field of the comment form, not necessarily in the comment body itself]. Within the next week or so, I will play matchmaker and pair you up via email to exchange mailing addresses. You will then send your Shutter Pal a photo and a short (or long) note about that photo and what it means to you, what it says about you, or whatever else you want to write about. Or, if sending a photo is too much pressure, just a note or postcard will be great too. And to help you along, I am giving away a packet of Photojojo's mailable photo frames to two commentors. They'll instantly turn any 4x6 photo into a postcard! Leave a comment by Monday night 10pm CDT to be entered to win.
Isn't this the perfect way to say Hello to each other? Who's with me now? Viva la snail mail!
Peace and Love,
Sarah-Ji
P.S. If you're daunted by the idea of letterwriting, start out by simply writing a note on the back of a photo, like a postcard, or sending an actual postcard. I think of postcards as the Twitter of the epistolary form, and that makes it much less intimidating.
P.P.S. If anyone wants to send me Postcards From Italy, feel free to do so!
Shutter Sisters
Congrats to Debi of Emma Tree and Heather of To Live Inspired--you each won a pack of Photojojo's mailable photo frames!
What a great start to our Snail Mail Revolution! Feel free to sign up if you haven't already.
Shutter Sisters
If you signed up to be a Shutter Pal, you should have received an email by now with the information on who you've been matched up with. If you haven't received that email, please contact Sarah-Ji directly at sarah [at] sarah-ji[dot]com. Iif you wish to be added in the future to the Shutter Pals exchange, contact Sarah-Ji (instead of commenting on this post). Thanks, and happy snail-mailing!
Reader Comments (177)
lolacolberg@gmail.com
please count me in on the fun, thank you!
Trish
patriciadolan@comcast.net
Joann
www.dille2@cableone.net
So far, we sent some to a sick grandparent.
Would love to participate!
i have been wanting to participate in something like this for a while now.
thanks so much for organizing this.
yay!
Sign me up...
xxx