#56: Children are quick to forget

your monthly microfiction and postcard art!

Bingo bongo, it’s art day, folks!

I’m never sure which I love more: researching a historical topic for you all, or writing fiction and drawing/painting/collaging postcards exploring the month’s topic. They’re all such genuine expressions of my interests, which are geeking out about niche histories I’ve researched into the ground and burying myself in art supplies/typewriter ink til I emerge victorious with some kind of finished project in my grip.

So to round out November and bring us into December (eek), today I’ll…

💌 show ya the 3D postcards I created for Postcard Club members and patrons,

💌 share voting results for this month’s prompt,

💌 take y’all on a cross-country train in a short story about a girl’s journey in the mail,

💌 and fill you in on my month’s creative news.

The viewing car in a cross-country Amtrak, 35 mm, 2022.

📦 A month in postcard art

This was another one of those months where I knew exactly the art I’d make y’all. If the month’s topic was sending children in the mail, then by God…I’d send some children in the mail. These baddies have a three-dimensional component I cannot get enough of:

Here’s a video so you can see the box flaps in action:

(Opening them one-handed is hard.)

🗳 The votes are in

Patrons and full-access subscribers voted for this month’s postcard-fiction prompt:

Action: tying a ribbon

Word: marble

Inspiration: Sending children in the mail

The fiction is always directly related to the historical theme I researched for the month. For a refresher, last month we talked about mailing kiddos:

Each month after voting closes, I give myself a measly 48 hours to write you a story set in whatever slice of history we explored.

I wrote this story directly from the perspective the girl I referenced in the article, a four-year-old named Edna Neff who traveled about a thousand miles via post.

🎀 Children are quick to forget

Here’s the postcard I wrote on:

And here’s the story:

Edna stretched on tiptoes at the train window, the landscape rushing past so fast her eyes ached. Back home, the air was sticky, and trees Mama called palms (like on your hands!) swayed by the beach, where the sand was soft enough to nap in. Edna had. Plenty. But Mama hadn’t taken her lately, hadn’t done much except sleep and let Dr. George give her medicine.

Wherever the train was now, it wasn’t sticky-warm at all outside, but crunchy and yellow, the window so cold her fingers stung. Days ago, Mama’d tied a green bow in her hair, and it was now so loose, a hat would ruin it. Edna’s ears might freeze right off. But she was a big girl, even if she’d cried in front of the mailman. Twice. He’d given her half his sandwich and let her sleep on the bags of letters after.

The mailman entered the car and crouched beside her, flicking the destination card and postage pinned to her blouse. “Next stop’s yours, little one, alright?”

He settled onto a seat nearby, scanning a folio. She shoved her small hands in her coat pockets, right hand settling around a marble from Daddy. She played with it lots since boarding the train alone forever ago. Mama said Edna was going to Daddy’s house in Virginia, but the idea of Daddy living somewhere was silly; he was someone who appeared and then left, usually around Christmas. Like a nice ghost.

Edna curled onto a mail bag, shifting off something lumpy. The train slowed, buildings polka-dotting the yellowed scenery crawling past. Even though Mama mostly slept nowadays, she’d still walked Edna to the train station where people and buggies wove around the enormous three-story building. Mama noticed none of it, panting and pale.

She tied then re-tied the ribbon in Edna’s hair. “Don’t bother your daddy none, you hear? Be a big girl. I love you.”

Mama’s breath shook, like she was fixing to cry. Dr. George said being sick made her sad. Edna slithered from Mama’s fussing hands and hugged her, and suddenly Mama was crying in earnest. Then the mail carrier arrived and bundled her onto the train, and that was that, Mama still way back there and Edna here, the ribbon in her hair gone loose.

The train squealed to a stop at Daddy’s station and porters slid the doors open. Cigarette smoke and voices and shoes clicking on concrete and the nibbling cold clamored for space on the platform. Somewhere, Daddy waited. Maybe he’d have another marble.

When Edna grabbed her little suitcase and stepped off the train, Mama’s ribbon slipped from her hair, disappearing under the feet of the passing crowd. Edna never noticed it was gone.

💻 Your turn: write some microfiction!

Using the same prompts above (children in the mail/tying a ribbon/marble), write a story of your own! Give yourself 72 hours or less to write it, and remember: the goal isn’t perfection. It’s putting your pen (cursor) to the page (screen) and making some art.

When you’re ready to share it with me, reply to this email, post it directly in the comments, or ask a 1900s child to take it to me since they’re getting mailed anyway. I want to read your gems!

(As always, if you’re feeling stuck getting started, here’s an article I wrote on microfiction fundamentals.)

☃️ No historical post this month

Because December kicks off the holidays - and I gotta holiday my holidays with the rest of ya - there’ll be no new historical theme for December¹. We’ll still have flash fiction, however, and I’ll be sharing a year’s end round-up of some Snail Mail Sweetheart gems, so you won’t be empty handed. Plus, my Postcard Club crew will get a special post of some extra research gems.

🌍 Updates in my creative world

• I’m nearly 50k words into my new novel! We’re zooming, friends. Every fiction piece I write, from the microfiction above to my other novel, comes together in seven drafts, so there’s work ahead once I finish the draft by (hopefully) year’s end. But hot dang, I’m stoked for every single step.

• I’m overhauling my Patreon in the coming days to make it even snazzier and seggsier for you all - keep a lookout!

• I’m nearly finished making a set for a 3D stop-motion short with the animation co-op (thanks, friends in co-op, for bearing with my slow-poke self!). Well over a pound of spackle has already gone to the cause.

• Remember how love of my life and fellow artist Jessica Sundstrom and I submitted our photo embroideries for the collaborative issue of Photo Trouvée Magazine? Well, our artwork made the cut and one will even be the cover photo! I cannot wait to have one of those magazines on my bookshelf (and you should snag one too).

My bones, Jessica’s gemstones and embroidery.

What’s an art victory you’ve had this month?

All my love and stamps and mailed-off children,

Nikita, your Snail Mail Sweetheart

1. If you never want this to happen again and a) are a seasoned writer and b) have an idea for a topic, pitch it to me! I’m actively looking for guest post writers for (paid) articles <3