History is full of juicy gossip.
Forget your high school history book. The weird, the petty, and the spicy is woven into the fabric of human history. A free newsletter, Snail Mail Sweethearts explores one letter each month, examining it from two sides:
📚 The truth. Each month, Snail Mail Sweethearts subscribers get to vote on our next deep dive into history’s more memorable letters, like spicy love letters and ancient Babylonian mail.
✒️The fiction. After I dish the facts, I’ll spin it into a tall tale, revisiting the historical mail from a fresh angle in a short story that fits on a postcard - and is based on prompts subscribers vote for.
🎨 In addition, paid subscribers get an annual homemade work of art. If once a year’s not enough (and I got a feeling it won’t be), my Patreon of the same name offers tiers for quarterly and monthly originals.
Whether you opt for quarterly, monthly, or annual original artwork mailed from the South of France, I’ll send gems to your physical mailbox anywhere in the world.
Chow down on history’s juiciest missals
Only the facts and nothing but the facts surrounding history’s finest mail - all served up in the gravy of my southerner’s love for gossip. I’ll tell it to you as if the person was a mutual friend: like if we both knew Abe Lincoln from a house party and I’m filling you in on how he puked in the bathroom trashcan with the door wide open right after you left.
From Emily Dickinson’s passionate love letters to Lady Elizabeth Compton’s boundless demands, history’s inbox is full of surprises to uncover, one written word at a time.
Read handwritten fiction
Following a prompt picked by paid subscribers and patrons, I then craft readers a piece of microfiction fiction directly related to the month’s historical letter. I write it directly onto a postcard, then scan and email to every subscriber, like this:
Stories from the POV of Emily Bronte’s candelabra or the Mesopotamian equivalent of a mailman are fair game for these monthly short stories that follow your unique prompts. Using the same love for writing that lands my stories in places like The New Orleans Review and Bourbon Penn, I write you fiction on a time crunch that breathes another kind of life into the history we love so well.
But my favorite part? Subscribers joining in on the fun, writing their own spin on the prompt and posting it in the comments or mailing it to me directly. I hope you will too.
Receive snail mail art from France
All subscribers get every newsletter, which feature scans of handwritten and hand-drawn components. Finally, the analog world’s weaseled its way into your inbox!
But paid subscribers get something more. In addition to choosing our monthly theme and prompts, paid subscribers receive original annual or quarterly artwork mailed to them from the South of France! I hand craft watercolors, charcoal drawings, poems, and more, unique to every participant.
Really love art? Subscribers can upgrade their experience on Patreon to receive monthly postcards and regular fine art prints.
Annually, I compile the microfiction into a hand-bound zine, analog-style, and mail them to my lucky paid subscribers. Don’t miss it!
History’s a weird place.
Let’s celebrate it at the intersection of fact and story.
