Letter Love

a writing prompt for Valentine's Day Weekend

I love February! It’s not the dark mornings, snow, or ice…it’s the writing prompts that are part of Laura Shovan’s annual month-long writing project—now in it’s 14th year (snaps for Laura) that I love.

I’ve participated for many years now. Laura chooses a topic/theme. The rest of us volunteer to share a prompt for a day on the project’s calendar…then we write, share, and encourage each other!

I’m part of the 5 am writer’s club. I don’t know why my brain is creative then…but it is. I eagerly look for the prompt each morning and take to my journal.

Wednesday was my day to offer a prompt. So, I’m sharing it with all of you. I’ll be away from my desk this Valentine’s weekend. You can share a response draft in the comments below (remember, they are public) or keep it to yourself. But have fun! I’ll see you with more active reading and commenting next week.

Prompt:

The photo above is from a dead letter office circa 1900. What do you see? There are so many delicious details to list in a journal! What do you wonder about? The dead letters are obvious mysteries…but what else tugs at your curiosity? What do you think you could bring into your fingers and onto a page or screen?

For reference, according to the Smithsonian’s National Postal Museum (which you should totally visit in DC), a dead letter office is a place where: “Clerks worked first to glean any information available on the wrapper. However, discovering the addressee or revealing information to return it to the sender sometimes necessitated opening the mail. Only the clerks of the Dead Letter Office had permission to open letters and packages. Regulations allowed them only to read the bare minimum to discover names and locations of the sender or intended recipient. In addition to ethics and reasoning skills, the work required knowledge of languages and geography. Multiple references, such as books listing common street names for U.S. cities, assisted clerks in their search.”

Photo Details: Dead letter office (LOC)

Bain News Service, about 1900

George Grantham Bain Collection (Library of Congress).

No known restrictions on publication.

Thank you, Robyn, at Life on the Deckle Edge, for rounding up our Poetry Friday offerings this week. As the candy heart says, You’re Sweet!