Love the insight about the letters and why some may be interesting and some not, and for sure it's best to have both sides. This is helpful as I'm writing an "epistolary memoir" incorporating hundreds of handwritten letters, mostly from exes, and connecting them with my own memories. It's fascinating the different voices. Thank you for your post!
Thanks! It's a huge puzzle, but one I'm excited to tackle. With almost 1,000 letters, it's a lot to assemble. Looking forward to your book Daddy-O as well!
I really love getting emails from people who’ve read my books. I’ve set up a special email that I print in the back of all of my books. I encourage people to use it to share their feedback. I’m surprised by how rarely that happens, but delighted whenever it does.
It’s changed how I think about feedback too—I used to be very shy about sharing feedback, but now I go out of my way to share positive thoughts—when they’re genuine. I just think people deserve more positivity in their lives, so when I genuinely feel it, I try to share it.
I love this. Yes to positivity. I’m inspired to write more authors too— or just put more encouraging, personal feedback into the world. I wrote another author this week.
I really enjoyed this, Victoria. Good look with the launch of your book!
Keats is one of my favourite letter writers. I think poets could be good letter writers. I enjoyed Lowell's letters. Weirdly, those of Elizabeth Bishop, a poet I admire hugely, weren't quite as interesting to me.
I'm sure my own letters will have been thrown away, as too boring to be of interest. I've kept a few letters from family members, but I'm not really sure why.
So much to consider here. I love that Substack brings us so close to authors we read or can read. One of the best moments in my "research" (or compulsive hunt) to know my parents as young people came when the daughters of Marcia Marcus told me they had the other side of the correspondence with Lennart and Mimi from Rome.. archived with the Smithsonian. I already had their letters to my grandparents from that time. They sounded entirely different writing a peer, perhaps especially different to an artist who was very hip to the scene in the East Village, and the avant-garde. Oh, how everything was perfect in Rome for my grandparents! Oh, how they missed NYC to Marcia! So I guess I'm highlighting how we're lucky to have any letters at all, but the audience for them truly matters.
After my mother died, and I was clearing out the house, I found letters she wrote her parents from Girl Scout Camp when she was 9 or 10. It was wonderful to hear her little girl voice and imagine who she might have been at that stage of her life. She didn't talk all that much about her childhood. She was one of four children, but all her siblings died in infancy, and I think my grandmother treated my mother like a fragile treasure (as one would!). But in her girl scout letters, she's getting her merit badges in riflery and hiking and canoeing. Treasures, indeed!
We owe those letter-savers so much! This is a lovely specific example that tells you so much about their relationship. Maybe your mother was trying to communicate something to her parents too—?
I love that idea. They had a deeply loving and extremely difficult relationship. I have a photo of them in a barren NM landscape, and they are curved into each other (both standing; Mom is about 3) like a couple of trees. (That photo was a find in the same drawer where the letters were.)
I guess if we were archivists or archeologists we would inventory everything we found with its original condition and location…? The photo makes a great pairing with the letters.
I have a rich trove of family letters, mostly sent by my mother and spanning at least 40 years. Although few are dated, it’s usually possible to determine roughly when she wrote them. These letters are treasures both as writing and as family history. I need to scan them, a massive undertaking. I’m lucky to have this task bearing down on me. Recent generations won’t have anything close, a great loss to everyone looking for the intergenerational story that contains their own.
Who saved these letters? Did you mother keep her own copies? That's one of the imbalances I'm struggling with. But having them at all is precious indeed!
She kept carbons, mindful of posterity. Replies from me and my father must exist in other rubber-banded piles, but it wouldn’t be easy to pair them up with hers.
I was lucky that my grandparents saved the wonderful letters my mother wrote to them about family life after marriage and they ended up back with her and then with me. But you’re right, we usually miss half of the correspondence. I have some of my grandparents’ letters, but they are much more ‘functional’ and less descriptive.
Love the insight about the letters and why some may be interesting and some not, and for sure it's best to have both sides. This is helpful as I'm writing an "epistolary memoir" incorporating hundreds of handwritten letters, mostly from exes, and connecting them with my own memories. It's fascinating the different voices. Thank you for your post!
I love the idea of an epistolary memoir!
Thanks! It's a huge puzzle, but one I'm excited to tackle. With almost 1,000 letters, it's a lot to assemble. Looking forward to your book Daddy-O as well!
Thanks—I’ll watch out for yours!
I really love getting emails from people who’ve read my books. I’ve set up a special email that I print in the back of all of my books. I encourage people to use it to share their feedback. I’m surprised by how rarely that happens, but delighted whenever it does.
It’s changed how I think about feedback too—I used to be very shy about sharing feedback, but now I go out of my way to share positive thoughts—when they’re genuine. I just think people deserve more positivity in their lives, so when I genuinely feel it, I try to share it.
I love this. Yes to positivity. I’m inspired to write more authors too— or just put more encouraging, personal feedback into the world. I wrote another author this week.
I really enjoyed this, Victoria. Good look with the launch of your book!
Keats is one of my favourite letter writers. I think poets could be good letter writers. I enjoyed Lowell's letters. Weirdly, those of Elizabeth Bishop, a poet I admire hugely, weren't quite as interesting to me.
I'm sure my own letters will have been thrown away, as too boring to be of interest. I've kept a few letters from family members, but I'm not really sure why.
It’s true that not all letters are interesting. But better to save than discard and regret it— you never know who will value them.
I’ll have to look up Keats’s letters—
So much to consider here. I love that Substack brings us so close to authors we read or can read. One of the best moments in my "research" (or compulsive hunt) to know my parents as young people came when the daughters of Marcia Marcus told me they had the other side of the correspondence with Lennart and Mimi from Rome.. archived with the Smithsonian. I already had their letters to my grandparents from that time. They sounded entirely different writing a peer, perhaps especially different to an artist who was very hip to the scene in the East Village, and the avant-garde. Oh, how everything was perfect in Rome for my grandparents! Oh, how they missed NYC to Marcia! So I guess I'm highlighting how we're lucky to have any letters at all, but the audience for them truly matters.
Yes, the recipient is like a silent partner in the exchange! This is a perfect example— and so useful for you in your hunt.
After my mother died, and I was clearing out the house, I found letters she wrote her parents from Girl Scout Camp when she was 9 or 10. It was wonderful to hear her little girl voice and imagine who she might have been at that stage of her life. She didn't talk all that much about her childhood. She was one of four children, but all her siblings died in infancy, and I think my grandmother treated my mother like a fragile treasure (as one would!). But in her girl scout letters, she's getting her merit badges in riflery and hiking and canoeing. Treasures, indeed!
We owe those letter-savers so much! This is a lovely specific example that tells you so much about their relationship. Maybe your mother was trying to communicate something to her parents too—?
I love that idea. They had a deeply loving and extremely difficult relationship. I have a photo of them in a barren NM landscape, and they are curved into each other (both standing; Mom is about 3) like a couple of trees. (That photo was a find in the same drawer where the letters were.)
I guess if we were archivists or archeologists we would inventory everything we found with its original condition and location…? The photo makes a great pairing with the letters.
I have a rich trove of family letters, mostly sent by my mother and spanning at least 40 years. Although few are dated, it’s usually possible to determine roughly when she wrote them. These letters are treasures both as writing and as family history. I need to scan them, a massive undertaking. I’m lucky to have this task bearing down on me. Recent generations won’t have anything close, a great loss to everyone looking for the intergenerational story that contains their own.
Who saved these letters? Did you mother keep her own copies? That's one of the imbalances I'm struggling with. But having them at all is precious indeed!
She kept carbons, mindful of posterity. Replies from me and my father must exist in other rubber-banded piles, but it wouldn’t be easy to pair them up with hers.
I love people who keep posterity in mind! :)
Yes, that sounds like another Someday Project, after the scanning. A giant jigsaw puzzle.
I was lucky that my grandparents saved the wonderful letters my mother wrote to them about family life after marriage and they ended up back with her and then with me. But you’re right, we usually miss half of the correspondence. I have some of my grandparents’ letters, but they are much more ‘functional’ and less descriptive.
Letters vary so much! But as source material it is all invaluable in different ways.