Gear up for the 2019 Write_On Challenge

National Letter Writing Month and the 30 day Write_On challenge are just weeks away! This year, in lieu of selling kits, we’re adding one of our 2019 limited edition color-in letterpress cards and a Gelly Roll pen from our partners Sakura to EVERY order on EggPress.com and the Write_On Shop FREE while supplies last!

Need to stock up on supplies to write your 30 letters? We’ve got a limited number of 10 card bundles of thanks or blanks available to help set you up right! And, we’re offering 25% off your entire order when you spend $50+ online through March 31st with code WRITEON2019*.

LOOKING FOR MORE?

Visit the resources section of the website to download tools to help you throughout the challenge.

• 30 Letter Log Sheet

• Envelope Liners

• Mailing Address Stickers

• Addressing Stencil

WANT TO HOST AN EVENT?

Want to host your own letter writing event in your community? Email us the details and we’ll post it on the events page to help get the word out. From casual coffee shop meet ups to more formal full-blown events, we love what you bring to the table every year to help spread the word and build meaningful connections across the globe through the art of letter writing.

*Code valid on retail orders only on EggPress.com from now until 11:59PST on 3/31/2019. Must enter coupon code at checkout.

National Random Acts of Kindness Day Challenge

This Sunday is National Random Acts of Kindness Day, which has us thinking about how much kindness can be spread through a single handwritten note. Maybe it's a thank you note handed to the barista at your neighborhood coffee shop, or a quick motivational quote jotted on a note left behind on your bus seat, or a secret letter to a stranger tucked inside a library book - the possibilities are endless, but the power of paying kindness forward is something incredible.

We challenge you to use letter writing as a vehicle for an act of kindness this weekend, and if you do, we'd love to hear about it. Share with us online using #Write_On, or join the Write_On Facebook group.

Dear Valentine: Thoughts and Inspiration from Diana Chao of Letters to Strangers

Dear Valentine,

2/14 is supposed to be some magical day: love tinges the air with a blushed je-ne-sais-quoi; your heart is bubble-on-the-edge-of-the-blower full. The winter cold melts against the heat of a couple’s embrace; it’s gentle and beautiful and alive and awkward in all the most perfect of ways.

But sometimes, it’s not. Sometimes, all that love is supplanted by loneliness.

The thing about love is that we are taught it as an external thing: to love someone, to be loved - these are internal feelings extrapolated to external relationships. When we say the cliche “love yourself,” the phrase can thud like a stone. What does it mean to love yourself? Acceptance - but of what? Kindness - but do I deserve it, always? “Love yourself” is a powerful mantra that dissolves upon contact, not because it’s not meaningful, but because we don’t always know what love looks like when it doesn’t take the form of something or someone else.

In this cold month of love, isolation and wistfulness are not rarities. But they should be. So, let’s take steps together to make Valentine’s Day not just a day of love, but an internalization of love.

Write a letter, dear stranger. To yourself. To someone else. To a stranger. Write your story, share your vulnerabilities, lend a hand. Share your wishes and your love; share what you think it means to love yourself.

Here are a few prompts to get started:

1. In this cold winter weather, what keeps you warm? Beyond objects, are there people, activities, and events that bring you warmth? How?

2. If self-love was a song, what would it sound like? Is it smooth jazz, improvisation and going with the flow? Is it indie pop, whimsical and emotional with a stable percussive beat? Is it lo-fi hip hop, a complex dance of rhythm and the faint buzzing of electric lines - something elated but just edgy enough to take you by surprise?

3. What will you do this Valentine’s Day, or any day, really, in this cold month of love? How does that compare with what you want to do? Has this changed over the years?

If you’re writing to someone else, don’t forget to share your reflections with them. If it’s eating dumplings with family on Lunar New Year that brings you warmth, what do you want the reader to know? If self-love is 70s funk, how would you share your understanding of “love yourself” now with someone else? If you’re treating yourself to a nice dinner on V-Day, what do you want the reader to not be afraid to do? Anything outside of these prompts is fair game - this is your letter, after all. As you start writing, don’t be afraid to detour. Let your writing guide you. Where do your thoughts lead, and how does that feel? If you’re at a loss, check out some sample letters by Letters to Strangers here.

Love shouldn’t be a lonely thing, but when cold is relentless and the magic feels like someone else, it often is lonely. I want your words, your thoughts, and your letter to remind you that you are vibrant. Incredibly interesting. Strong in the subtlest of ways -- an exquisitely-defined human being who is deeply loved, not least by yourself, whatever that means for you. And I want you to share those thoughts and that love with others, even strangers.

2/14 is coming up. I can already taste the magic.

Love,

Diana

P.S. We partnered with Egg Press to giveaway some letterpress cards on our Instagram. Visit Letters To Strangers on Instagram and enter for a chance to win by 2/10.

About Diana: Diana Chao is the Founder & Executive Director of Letters to Strangers (L2S), a global youth-run nonprofit seeking to de-stigmatize mental illness and increase access to affordable quality treatment through anonymous letter-writing exchanges, education, and advocacy. Join the youth mental health movement and get involved by starting a chapter today!

Make time to write by hand for National Handwriting Day

It’s National Handwriting Day - the perfect opportunity to reunite with your favorite pen or pencil, and make time for some good old fashioned correspondence. There are many goofy holidays that pop up throughout the year, but this one falls on John Hancock’s birthday, and has been celebrated since 1977 - yeah, before the internet!

Aside from its unique aesthetic, writing by hand boasts some major benefits such as exercising your fine motor skills and improving dexterity, helps you retain information, and can have an emotional impact on your recipient - especially a loved one or pen pal who grows to know your unique lettering over time.

Stumped on who to write to? Visit our resources page to write to those in need - practice your penmanship and make someone smile at the same time.

We hope you’ll join us and make some time to put pen to paper today! If you do, be sure to share your unique handwriting with us in the Write_On Facebook group, or on Twitter and Instagram using #Write_On!

Write Around Portland with Kate Rood

Like many of you, I feel very nostalgic about back to school shopping. My most vivid memories are of decorating the covers of my 3-ring binders, each school subject a different color theme. Now the return to autumn has me shopping for new Egg Press stationery and waiting in line at my neighborhood USPS for the latest postage stamp release. I’m a correspondence fanatic (find me on Instagram @snailmailcreations), and I keep the #Write_On mission to “promote joy, creativity, expression, and connection through hand-written correspondence” close to heart always.

One way I stay connected to creativity and correspondence year round is volunteering on the board of Write Around Portland, my favorite nonprofit! At Write Around Portland, we offer free writing workshops in prisons, hospitals, low income housing communities and other places where the act of writing nurtures hope and joy. After each workshop season, we publish an anthology and hold a public reading so that our community can benefit from hearing the stories of all Portlanders. We believe writing is powerful for individual and societal transformation, self-expression, healing and the realization of the dignity of one’s self and others.

Back to school time at Write Around Portland means the start of our fall workshops.This fall we’re bringing our workshops to folks receiving services at 15 different social service agencies, including p:ear, NICU Families NW, Chemawa Indian School, Home Forward and Whitewood Gardens Residential Care Facility.

Hand-written correspondence is a big element of every workshop. Following each session of a 10-week workshop, the facilitator (volunteers who complete a 27-hour training) sends a personalized postcard to each writer in the workshop.

10 weeks of love, multiplied by hundreds of workshop participants, equals thousands of postcards sent by Write Around Portland volunteers this fall. Thousands of postcards to help our participants realize and believe that they are all writers and to encourage their unique voices.

If you’re leading a training, a class or a big meeting this fall, consider adding correspondence into your approach to engaging participants. A handwritten note before or after a meeting (or throughout if you’re leading a full class term or series) will build connection faster than any icebreaker can. So don’t forget to collect mailing addresses during sign ups!

Even if you’re not leading a group, try opening a card to a loved one with one of these Write Around Portland style prompts that we use in our workshops:

• The night smelled like...
• Fall brings…
• I wish I knew…
• In my parents kitchen...

I invite all #Write_On community members to get involved with Write Around Portland. Please join us for a writing workshop, our annual event, Raise Your Pen, on October 18th, or one of our community readings in December (follow us on Facebook for dates!). And if you are not able to join us at one of these, I hope you will check out this short video about how we use donations to support our workshops and the postcards that all our writers receive, and consider making a gift so that all Portlanders can feel the joy you and I do when we put pen to paper.

With love,
Kate

About Kate: Kate Rood serves as Community Engagement Officer for Beneficial State Foundation, a unique foundation working to change the banking system for good through advocacy and stewardship of the triple bottom line mission of Beneficial State Bank. Before joining the movement for better banking, Kate advised Portland State University’s Impact Entrepreneurs on social innovation events and community programs. Her background is in executive education, bringing business leaders together for collaboration and community. Kate received a BA in political science from Smith College and an MBA from Portland State University. A published writer, Kate believes good things happen when we speak, write and bear witness to each other’s stories. She is on the board of directors for both Write Around Portland and B Local PDX. Kate is passionate about the positivity, creativity and mindfulness of handwritten mail, and makes and sends cards every week.

Share your feedback for a chance to win $50 of writing supplies

Thank you for joining us during April’s Write_On Challenge, now that we’re a few months out, we hope your letter-writing habits are still going strong. Planning for 2019 is already underway, and we want to hear from you to help the program continue to grow and inspire letter writers across the globe.

What did you love? Which resources were helpful? What would you like more of next year? Now's your time to dive into all things Write_On so we can continue to grow the program with YOU, the ones that bring the energy and heart to this movement.

Click here to take our quick survey by 8/8/18 and be entered to win $50 to spend in the Write_On shop. We can't wait to hear from you!

WRITE_ON AND TEDxPORTLAND LETTER EXCHANGE

On Saturday, April 21st, we teamed up with TEDxPortland for a special Write_On community letter-writing experiment: We invited participants to write a letter to a stranger (another attendee) documenting their biggest takeaway from the speakers they heard. This year’s event was curated around the idea of building bridges - featuring speakers from all disciplines and walks of life who shared their stories, experiences, and ideas to an audience of thousands. Writing a letter to a stranger was a big ask and unlike anything we’d done before, but we felt that in the spirit of bridge building and engaging with a broader community we’d give it a try. We got nothing but good feels in return – people were game to be a part of this thought sharing collective. They took to writing outdoors, at tables inside and at their seats.

Photo courtesy of TEDxPortland

We’re already excited for TEDxPortland 2019 to catch up with some of these folks. We’re curious...How many made a new friend or became pen pals? How many people learned to see something in a new light? How many people discovered that they like the act of writing letters, and how exciting it is to receive one in return?

Write_On and 826 Valencia Host an Ocean of Thanks

Special thanks to everyone who joined us at 826 Valencia on Saturday for our Ocean of Thanks event celebrating the launch of the 2018 30 Day Write_On Challenge alongside Thank You Thursday. We had such a great time writing thank you notes in an attempt to reach our goal of 826 letters in one day, which we exceeded by writing *drum roll please* 844 thank you notes in a day!!! It was so fun to sit down and connect with people of all ages, using the beautiful letterpress cards printed especially for the event, and creating our own cards using Mrs. Grossman's stickers and our favorite Sakura of America pens. We are so grateful for our community of letter-writers and we love seeing the art put to action. Thank you to everyone who joined our San Francisco event, including our sponsors! We are so excited to have surpassed our goal!

Write_On 2018 Portland Launch Party

Thank you to everyone who joined us at the beautiful Schoolhouse Electric & Supply Co. Showroom in NW Portland to launch the 2018 30 Day Write_On Challenge. This sold-out event brought letter-writing enthusiasts of all ages together for an inspiring evening of creativity and authenticity - all in the name of letters! It means so much that we've got an amazing community of letter-writers excited to put pen to paper along with us. From our local event sponsors, to everyone in attendance, thank you all for filling our night with thoughtful conversation, laughter, and passion for handwritten correspondence.

Photos by Christa Fowles.

Inspire your Practice with our Letter-Writing Prompt Deck

The idea of writing 30 letters in just 30 days can be overwhelming... What do I write about? What if I have nothing new to share with my friends or family? What if I've already written to everyone I can think of? Some of the beauty of the 30 letter commitment, is the opportunity to reach outside of your normal circle and take time to write to folks in your life who you may have forgotten, or see every day.

To guide you through the Write_On Challenge, we're excited to offer this new deck of 30 letterpress printed letter-writing prompts to keep writer's block at bay. Printed on Strathmore Impress Wove Pure Cotton paper by Mohawk, the complete deck comes in a letterpress printed and die-cut box.  The entire set was made in the Egg Press studio in Portland, Oregon! The craftsmanship that went into every deck makes them more than just a reference set - they are beautiful to look at and to hold as well. Each card has a unique prompt that can be used year round, anytime you'd like to write a letter.

We put a lot of love into creating the decks, and can't wait to hear how they inspire your 30 day challenge and ongoing letter-writing practice throughout the year. 

Stock up before April's Write_On Challenge in the shop here.