Naomi Bulger: messages in bottles

I received this email recently from a woman who came across my novella Airmail in an East Berlin youth hostel. It just made my heart sing.

"I am staying at a youth hostel in East Berlin and stumbled across a copy of your book. I am a forty year-old woman traveling with my son, and readily identified with Mr Solomon's bemusement when he first enters the hostel (it was my first time staying at a hostel!)...

"Being forty this year was hard for me and I too am traveling and gathering more marbles. It's not so much that I haven't lived an adventuresome life, it's just that suddenly your life seems so much shorter while the list of things you want to do grows bigger, and you realize that you have spent the last 10 years of your life raising kids and working. (could this be what a mid-life crisis is all about......duh)

"It's amazing how at certain critical points in your life the right book or the right experience occurs. Your book is part of that for me. Today I walked past some graffiti on the side of a cafe - 'Life is not over yet' it read."

Wasn't that nice of this woman to write and tell me? I don't think there's anything that could make me happier as an author than to learn that my book was "the right book" in someone's life. Oh so happy.

Why do so many of us love snail mail so much? It's not convenient, it's not immediate, and it's not free. Email can be all of the above. So can IM and even SMS (depending on your plan). So what's so great about the mailbox?

A few years ago, we thought the digital age would end snail mail altogether. Like, video killing the radio star all over again. Yet today, the sight of a handwritten letter in the mail makes many people leap for joy. Letter writing projects and cooperatives are springing up all over the world, fuelled by folks who love to stay in touch.

Why?

Is it nostalgia? Do we yearn for the days when things were done slowly, carefully, and by hand?

Or is it the personal touch? Does the sight of pen-on-ink, wonky handwriting and lines through mistakes bring us closer to the writer than their spellcheckers, SMS shorthand and emoticons ever could?

Is it the tactile nature of snail mail? The crunch of autumn leaves underfoot as you walk to the letterbox, the creak as you lift the lid, the texture of that envelope as you hold it in your hand, weighing it without realising you're doing it, judging by thickness and shape what you might find inside.

Or is it as fundamental as novelty? Now that our key mode of written communication is digital, does good, old-fashioned mail simply represent the allure of the unusual?

I don't have the answers. But I can tell you I love receiving mail, AND sending it.

I am not fast. It takes me a while to write to my friends. To think about what I want to say to them and then write it down. To decide what to include with my little letter. To plan how I might make the envelope pretty, something special to receive. I put the 'snail' in snail mail.

These days, I even make snails look speedy. There are many people I want to write to right now, but the carpal tunnel syndrome that has dogged my pregnancy makes it even harder to hold a pen or pencil than it is to type. Soon, my friends, I promise to write to you. Or maybe I will succumb and type my letters for you. But that just wouldn't be the same. Would it?

These photographs are of a wonderful little package I received in the mail last week from my pen pal in Germany, Astrid. She sends the most glorious mail. I love unwrapping the surprises she sends me (so does Ruby the cat).

_ps. Astrid recently put her creativity to work and opened an Etsy shop. You can find her sweet, handmade items at Flora Likes Soap and if you buy something, tell Astrid I say hello. She is just a lovely person.

Lately I've been drawing pictures on the mail I'm sending. The ladies at my local post office seem to like it. Hopefully my friends will, too.

I was inspired to draw pictures on parcels by this wonderful book, posted to ME recently by my dear friend Ruby Blessing. I love Edward Gorey's little graphic stories, and already have two of them at home. How did she know? I can't wait to delve into the wonderful letters inside this book!

And look what else arrived in my mailbox last week, all the way from my lovely postal pal Hermine, in Belgium. She sends the sweetest, most creative little parcels, I just love getting them.

Then yesterday afternoon I answered the door to the postman and JUST LOOK what arrived, sent from my dear friends Michelle and Kevin in Sydney, who stayed with us just last weekend. I am incredibly spoiled.

How about you? What have you found in your mailbox lately? What are you sending to friends?

(ps. As always, if you buy a copy of my novella Airmail, I promise to send you a personal letter in the mail. Just email me your address, or my other contact details are here.)

Last week my friend Diana Murdock, an author from the We Are Not Alone blogger group* I joined last year, interviewed me about my book Airmail.

She posted the interview on her own blog this morning (well, in the middle of the night my time) and it's there now if you'd like to have a read. She's also running an Airmail giveaway for anyone who leaves a comment.

SO. If you would like a signed copy of my book sent to your door, quite possibly with a fancy wax seal on the envelope, visit Diana today. She'll be drawing a winner tomorrow, and I'll post the book off on Monday.

Hooray for presents in the mail!

I hope you win.

*What is this blogger group of which I speak? It sprang from a course on 'blogging for writers' run by Kristen Lamb. It was fantastic.

ps.1 - don't forget to go on over to Diana's blog and leave a comment
ps.2 - click "Like" if you like this - we can share the love on Facebook and give Diana some support