Can a Postcard Change the World? I Want to Send You One.

A small revolt against scrolling -- with a stamp.

Last week Matt and I were wandering around Paris and came across a quaint little bookstore. At the back of the shop was a twirling stand filled with vintage postcards. Classical art, old cityscapes and a lot of religious iconography.

I’ve always loved looking through old cards and postcards, letters and books. Wondering how long they’ve been floating around in this world, un-read, un-written, un-sent. I snagged a half-dozen cards given they were only 50 centimes apiece and committed to freeing them from living on that bookstore carousel for another decade.

Matt capturing me with my postcards and an incoming tornado, apparently.

Even now in my forties and two decades of being involved in the writing and publishing world, it continues to be ironic to me that I am a literary agent. While I could sit in the quiet of a bookstore or library for hours, I’ve never been one to get lost in books like some of my peers. It may sound sacrilegious to my industry, but I would choose to watch a film over a book any day of the week. (And I would apologize to the authors I represent, but they all know this fact about me.) In light of that, it’s comical that I have found such delight in the world of words after all my academic years are behind me. I never had one teacher tell me I was decent at writing with several actually making a point to tell me quite the opposite. [Insert sad symphonic melody as I dramatically look away.]

The delight came when I was challenged in my late 20’s to join the new world of blogging. I didn’t feel confident at all but for some odd reason I decided to get over my fear and, over time, the practice and consistency of it, helped me find and refine my voice. To this day, I’m still critiqued about my spelling and grammar, but I’ve had to let that go. (Sorry to all the editors who read my writing and choke on their alphabet soup.)

Writing is a creative practice that we know is good for our brain, communication skills and should give us all great empathy and appreciation for the authors we read. You will never know how hard writing a book is until the day you turn in a final manuscript. I’d like to take a moment and give a slow clap to all my authors who have done this multiple times in their one wild and precious life.

As 43 nips at my heels and aging reveals itself to me every time I have to hold my phone farther away from my face in order to read it, or a new bingeable true crime series is relentlessly advertised to me because my data has revealed I’m just like every other woman my age, I think about little things, little non-digital things, I can do to have a mini-revolt to changing times.

So, if you want to revolt today, if you want to do something simple for your brain that can also make others feel seen and possibly loved, here is my challenge to us both.

Let’s write a postcard or handwritten letter. A thank you, a hello-it’s-been-awhile, or if you want to go even deeper, try this:

Hi [Name of person you are writing.]

I was thinking about [something you were thinking about] today, which made me want to write you! [1-3 lines about your thoughts.] So I’m curious, [1-3 questions for the person you’re writing.]

Sincerely,

[Your name here]

Isn’t that fun? And doable? And works our brain and hands in a slightly different way than what we often are doing for work or all the “scrolling breaks” we take during the day.

If I replaced one scrolling break with one postcard a day, I could change the world.

Ok, a bit of an overstatement, but I do believe the practice of thinking, sharing and asking questions to actual humans we know in a format that takes more than a millisecond to post, is far more powerful than the dumpster fire of opinion sharing and hearts given online.

This is a not new idea, but for some reason, it takes effort for me to put into practice and I’d like a little accountablity. So I want to start by sending some thank you postcards and I want to send one to some of you! As someone who works with a lot of creatives who are constantly expected to create for free, my job as an agent is ensuring they get paid for their work. This platform I am writing on allows readers, like you, to read for free or be a generous “paid” subscriber. To my surprise, many of you have been kind enough to opt for the paid subscription as a thank you for the writing and content I’m sharing.

It is wildly touching to me, and I want to send you a REAL postcard from Paris. If you are one of those aforementioned kind souls, please send me a message with your address so I can show up at your door write you a real-life-hold-in-your-hand, thank you postcard.

The Victorian-age ladies who have been sitting still on the front of that postcard since 1902 would like to join me in expressing our analog gratitude - to YOU!

Sincerely,

Joy and her Postcards

p.s. Did you write one today? Got any other mini-revolt ideas? Tell me.