Stories Are Letters by guest blogger Diana Joseph

When I saw this ad a few months, I was intrigued. It stuck with me. I think words loving scribbled on paper really do touch someone more than an email, phone call, or text. I always feel like a kid at Christmas when it comes to getting a letter in the mail instead of a bill or donation request. It makes me feel loved. I figured that writers would have a strong reaction to the somewhat lost art of letter writing, so I asked one of our 2010 festival authors, Diana Joseph, to write about her thoughts on this image. Here is what she sent:

The voice in I'm Sorry You Feel That Way, my memoir-in-essays is not the voice I use when I’m talking to my students or my family or even my friends. It wasn’t the voice I used to sound smart in essay exams or to sound not-like-a-lunatic in tirades I’ve sent to my local congressman. But it is my letter-writing voice. It’s how I sound in letters—not emails or IMs or text messages, but actually pen-scratched-on-paper letters.

John Edgar Wideman says "Stories are letters. Letters sent to anybody or everybody. But the best kind are meant to be read by a specific somebody." When I was working on the essays that became my memoir, I first imagined them as letters. In fact, when I sat down to write a draft, I even put Dear Melanie at the top of the page.

Melanie is Melanie Rae Thon, one of my favorite people in the universe. I met her in 1993 when I was a student in the MFA program at Syracuse University and she was my teacher. She runs a fantastic workshop, one that inspired me to become a more patient reader, a more compassionate writer, and a better person. Over the years, Melanie and I have kept in touch not by telephone or email, but through letters, hundreds of them, the old fashioned kind, written by hand on a sheet of paper, folded into thirds, slid into an envelope then mailed from Syracuse, New York; Columbus, Ohio; Grand Junction, Colorado; Salt Lake City, Utah; Mankato, Minnesota.

There was something lovely about reaching into my mailbox and finding, amongst the letters from utility companies threatening to turn off my electric and my heat, and collection agencies threatening legal action—I was trying to support myself and my son on an adjunct’s wages—a letter from Melanie. The envelopes were pink or gold or cream; the sheets of paper were pale green or yellow or light blue. Her handwriting was distinctive, swoopy but also angular, and just seeing it made me hear her voice. Sometimes she included a photograph she’d taken of an adobe house or a barn or a run-down shack. Other times she included a collage she’d made of the Virgin Mary, serene in a blue forest, or Jesus against a green mountainside. She’d sometimes mention whatever she was working on; she'd always ask about my writing, offering encouragement, support, and a heartfelt belief in me that I didn’t always have in myself.

While writing my memoir, there were times I felt anxious and afraid. But beginning with the words Dear Melanie made me feel less alone. Imagining each of my essays as a letter to a person who, when I am behaving in ways she isn't wild about, loves me enough to say I understand the impulse—made me feel brave but also safe. Imagining her as my reader made me feel like I could tell these personal stories, especially the ones where I don't come off like a winner.
Do you still write letters to anyone? Tell us about it. Perhaps there is someone like Melanie in your life that would inspire a story from you!

You'll be able to hear Diana read from her memoir at the Hotel Lusso, our Festival Hub on Saturday, April 17. She will also be participating in our editing/rewriting workshop. Check our website as we will be adding details for the festival soon!