The Letter Lounge

By Jackie Flaherty (January 2011)

Imagine meeting in a café – much like the one pictured here – to sit down and spend an hour or two writing letters. Although letter writing is mostly (and for some, always) a solitary endeavor, sometimes it is nice to visit with other letter writers. And, if we’re lucky, we will also get a mix of people who are not letter writers, but have who have come because they want to be letter writers. That is the mission behind Letter Lounge.

(Drink, Shop & Do- a design shop and café bar)

Created and promoted by Claire Medcalf, the Letter Lounge sets up venues to encourage the craft and hobby of letter writing in the UK. Claire started LL in 2009 as a way to share her love of sending and receiving letters.

Claire has met with moderate success and hopes to grow this hobby by continuing to organize more meet-ups. When asked exactly what she does at these events, Claire said, “I find a venue and set a time, for example 2 – 5pm, then people come along to drink tea, eat cake and write letters. I provide writing paper, envelopes, stamps and I post the letters so they don’t get forgotten about in the bottom of your bag. That’s it!”

The photo above is from a shop in London called Drink, Shop & Do which hosted the most recent LL event on January 16, 2011. If you check out the Letter Lounge website, you may see some pictures posted from this event. As of this writing, the photos on the site are from previous LL events.

If you would like to learn more about Letter Lounge, here are some of their links: Facebook Twitter

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Missive Maven

Ilona describes her site as a “…celebration of snail mail, this letter-writing blog: photos and thoughts on letters written and received, favorite stationery, fountain pens — all the accouterments of the old-fashioned letter in your mailbox.” And she delivers with lots of photos, links and interesting commentary on her ingoing and outgoing mail.

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365 Letters

Carla started her blog on January 1, 2009 with the goal of writing a letter every day for the whole year! Faithfully she blogged about it and as I write this she has 199 people following her. In 2010 she is taking a break from writing a letter a day, but she is posting an idea a day for a year of letter writing tips and suggestions.

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Everyday Correspondence

James offers vintage letterhead on his blog as well as interesting articles he writes and posts about concerning mail, stationery, reviews. He has also begun offering Friday night reviews of links to sites he is visiting at the end of the week.

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Whatever

Julie offers regular pen and ink reviews and also does a lot of twittering to support fellow pen and ink lovers.
These are just a few of the many bloggers sharing their love of letters, correspondence, notebooks, pen and ink.
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