Welcome to Social Correspondence 2016 and belated Happy New Year! Today is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, a day to reflect on the legacy of this remarkable man, and on the hope for a more peaceful world, with fairness and social justice for all. I wish each of you a healthy, peaceful and fulfilling year ahead.
Fall and winter holidays are my favorite time of year, a time to enjoy family and friends, good food, and conviviality. It also is the time to reconnect with those we see less often through the ritual of the annual holiday letter. But truly, it doesn’t matter if the letter arrives in November, December, January or any other month of the year. What is important is that we stay in touch, and what could be more tangible than a letter that can be read as often as desired? The value of a letter is perennial.
With this new year, I am doing what many people do –re-organizing and, hopefully, de-cluttering. This exercise includes researching archival storage possibilities for saving and organizing letters and discarding duplicate or poor quality photos. If you are sitting on a cache of old letters, especially letters from a previous generation, I hope you are doing the same!
This also is the time to evaluate and consider topics for Social Correspondence 2016. As noted in December, stories about people and/or historical topics appear to appeal to most readers, but surely there are many topics we are missing. One of the goals for this year is to include more stories from guest bloggers.
While the goals for Social Correspondence 2016 remain the same, to encourage readers to value and write letters, the scope of topics covered most likely will expand. Fine and performing arts, as well as literature and digital communications are all among the myriad ways we communicate with one another. There are many ways we convey messages of importance, not only about ourselves, but also about the times we live in, and a letter is often at the heart of it. Think Romeo and Juliet and how the USPS might have saved them!
Do you have a story that you would like to share with other readers? Perhaps there was a letter that made a difference in your life, or in the life of one of your ancestors, that tells a story. Is there a film that you admired and enjoyed, such as Brooklyn, in which letters did or did not fulfill the need in someone’s life for social contact, about which you would like to write? If you are interested in writing a guest blog, please contact me at letters@socialcorrespondence.com or marciagschneider@gmail.com.
In the meantime, I hope that you continue to enjoy Social Correspondence 2016. One of my favorite parts of writing is receiving your comments, so please continue to send them! And, as always, your suggestions are welcome.
Social Correspondence 2016 Upcoming topics
Love Letters from World War I
The Dead Letter Office
chet roaman
19 Jan 2016Loved this CORRESPONDENCE even if it made me guilty about my lack of saving and organizing my own notes and correspondence.