Mail Call // Revisit The Past with February's Month of Letters Challenge

Remember pen pals? Those far-off friends that many of us wrote to when we were somewhere between 8 and 12 years old? Coming home to hand-addressed letters, such simple excitement.

Inspired by taking a vacation from the internet last Fall, author and puppeteer Mary Robinette Kowal is bringing that feeling back and challenging others to do the same:

The Month of Letters Challenge asks that you mail at least one thing for every day the postal service operates in the month of February. Write to your grandma-ma, your local newspaper, whoever you feel (replying to letters counts too, folks.) Kowal already has some people in mind to write to.

"I started mailed correspondence with some folks when I took a month off the internet back in September, and we've continued to exchange letters," she tells us. "I'll keep writing to them during February but also add people that I really should be in better touch with, like my nieces and nephew. I'm also planning on writing some fan mail to some favorite authors. Then, of course, there's the plan  to write back to everyone who writes to me."

Mary Robinette Kowal (C) 2010 Annaliese MoyerFor those of you with a bit of a thing for stationery (cough cough) or luxury writing utensils (clearing throat), this is your chance to indulge. Kowal gave us a few words of wisdom in that department as well: "I've recently returned to fountain pens for letter-writing. I use a FaberCastell fine point sepia for signing books, but it doesn't feel as nice on the page as a fountain pen," she says. "I am a sucker for papers, and it's hard to narrow it down. Currently, I'm using a classic laid in off-white, which is simple and clean. I actually prefer just a straight up cold-pressed 100 percent cotton but it is really hard to find stationery at all these days."

And if you move quickly, you can score some pretty snazzy Year of the Dragon stamps. Personally, we're  excited to bust out our recycled paper and colorful pens and catch up with some old friends, sans tagged photos and 85-character Tweets.

--Layla Schlack