Winter Call for Submissions
Bretty Rawson
Handwriting is always changing, and so are we. While you can submit anything to us at anytime, you can also submit some things to us at some times. This winter, we're looking to hear and see how handwriting is surfacing in the below ways:
1. Elections. The election left a chaotic dent in the world. No matter how or if you voted, its impact is everywhere — online, in the streets, on walls. We've seen it surface in handwriting in various ways: from kids writing letters to Donald Trump about kindness to the Post-It Note Wall in Union Square Subway Station (below). Handwriting has its own political past, and can be, as we're seeing, a form of protest. The pen is, after all, the formal declaration of war. But handwriting also plays an important role in how we process impactful moments. In stories, drawings, images, or drafts, send us your observations, experiences, and understandings.
"This Is How You Build a Wall:" A picture of the thousands of Post-It Notes in Union Square Subway Station, calling for No Hate,
2. Snow Write. See what we did there? Lame, we know. Anyway, it's winter outside. This means we might get snowed in sometime soon! No better time to cozy up next to the log fire, or broken radiator, and write. Last year, we published a touching tradition (below), I Saw In My Mind a Sparkling Vision of Them, in which a mother hand-wrote messages on each present to her children. How do you experience the handwritten holidays?
"I Saw In My Mind a Sparkling Vision of Them," Adrienne Harvitz, published on Handwritten (Winter 2015)
3. Anaba. When we need a little bit of social silence, we go to our favorite tavern: the one below street level, all wood, with the Chuckanut Pilsner. We order two beers while writing letters or thoughts in our journals. There is a word in Japanese for these kinds of private places in public: anaba. Tell us about the spots, spaces, and places you go when you need to a little more room to write in.
The Pub @ Third Place, Ravenna, Seattle, WA