Postcrossing Blog

The writing prompts invite postcrossers to write about a different topic on their postcards’ messages every month. These are just suggestions though — if you already know what you want to write about, or the recipient gives you some pointers, that’s great too!

August was my birthday month, and my wedding anniversary also falls in August, so I had a well-fed month! For my birthday, my family always choose the same place to celebrate, so I was wondering about everyone else… which leads in to this prompt.

Both me and my sister always celebrate our birthdays with food from a Cantonese restaurant in Wakefield, called (perhaps a little non-originally) Pagoda. Usually when we go in person we get a banquet meal for the group, because (with a couple of substitutions) it contains all our favourites: chicken and sweetcorn soup, sesame prawn toast and crispy wontons for appetizers, crispy duck with pancakes… and that’s all before we get to the main course, where we usually get a few options. Personally, I gravitate toward lemon or orange chicken, along with a little bit of sweet and sour pork—though I do like stealing the onions from everyone else’s choices, too.

And finally we do like to wrap up with dessert, even if it doesn’t really match the meal: my sister likes a slice of lemon meringue pie, while I usually either plump for the same or go for a slice of chocolate fudge cake. After that, we just about need to be rolled out of our seats and off to the car to get home… and I don’t think any of us eat much the next day. There’s a reason it’s a special treat!

Are you feeling hungry yet? I think I am… Tell us about your favourites here, or consider writing about them on your postcards this month if you’re stumped for what to say!

Up until a couple of centuries ago, sending a letter was very different from today. For instance, postage was often paid by the recipient based on the distance traveled and the number of sheets it contained. Even after stamps were introduced, sending something to another country was an odyssey involving acquiring stamps from all the intermediary countries, and also engaging the services of private couriers, diplomatic channels, or securing transport along with the ship’s cargo… You can probably guess there weren’t that many international penpals back then. 😅

But this all changed in 1874! Heinrich von Stephan, the visionary postmaster-general of the German Reichspost (and the person who first floated the idea of a postcard!), suggested countries should meet and discuss the postal status quo in an international conference to see if they could work out a better way to do things. And they did! Representatives from 22 countries got together in Switzerland with the goal of reforming the postal sector and improving the efficiency and reliability of international mail. There were many technical issues to resolve… but after a few days of intense negotiations, they managed to put together a system that would be fair to all countries, regardless of their size or the volume of mail they handled. On 9 October of the same year, a date now celebrated worldwide as World Post Day, the Treaty of Bern, establishing the General Postal Union, was signed. The Union’s membership grew so quickly that it changed its name in 1878 to Universal Postal Union (aka, the UPU)!

The goal of the Treaty of Bern was to create a single postal territory for the exchange of international mail, simplifying and standardizing things. In practice, this meant that all members of the union allowed the free transit of international mail through their territories without additional charges, and also agreed to treat the delivery of incoming international mail the same way as domestic mail. The treaty also established uniform postal rates for international mail, making it easier and more affordable to send letters and postcards. It meant that items could be mailed from any one member country to another with just one stamp, no matter how far they needed to travel or how many countries they traveled through. This might seem like a small change, but it had a massive impact on how people communicated and did business across borders.

All of this happened 150 years ago, and since then, the UPU has expanded to foster collaboration between 192 member countries in the different areas that relate to mail. Whether it’s coming up with standards, supporting the development of e-commerce, improving quality of service and mail security, or helping to ensure that postal services are accessible to everyone, the UPU has been on top of it for decades. Every time you write an address, fill out a customs form or check a tracking code, you can thank the UPU for their work!

So this year, on October 9th, the UPU celebrates its 150th anniversary, and you can imagine this is a big deal. A few countries are planning to issue special stamps to honor the occasion, and Postcrossing has joined the celebrations too on the campaign “A maximum card for maximum worldwide fun!”

For this campaign, the UPU has designed a special commemorative postage stamp, cancellation mark and matching postcard, and invited postal operators to issue it in their country so that people worldwide can celebrate too. 😊 The postcard has a little blurb about Postcrossing on the writing side, encouraging the person to send out the postcard into the world and receive one back as a way to celebrate the work of the UPU. A few countries have confirmed their participation in this activity so far (Belarus, Nigeria, Oman, Russia, Lithuania, Tunisia and United Arab Emirates), but we hope more will join and that we’ll see many of these postcards traveling around the world on October 9th, which is World Post Day. Keep an eye out for them!

PS: If you’re curious to see what the UPU headquarters look like, check out this travel report from the Little Mail Carriers some years ago!

I’ve been eager to tell you all about A Letter to the Luminous Deep, a debut novel by Sylvie Cathrall. It’s a fantasy novel (or maybe a little bit sci-fi), and it’s told entirely through the medium of letters sent between the characters. From the start, it’s clear that some disaster has befallen, and piece by piece the letters start filling in the blanks.

The whole story is so full of love and tenderness of all kinds. From the start, we know that two of the main characters, E. and Henery, are gone. E.'s sister, Sophy, and Henery’s brother, Vyerin, are trying to gain some closure and understanding of what happened by pooling together the letters each of them has from their siblings’ personal effects. Almost all the story is told through these letters, though sometimes other bits and pieces are included to give extra context and flesh out the world. The letters between E. and Henery slowly evolve from acquaintanceship to a close friendship, even love, which is a delight to read—and in parallel, Sophy and Vyerin come to understand and mourn their siblings, and also form a friendship of their own with each other.

It probably sounds from that like the whole story is sad, and there is definitely a deep sadness to it, as Vyerin and Sophy grieve and try to come to terms with loss. There’s also a cosiness, though, as we follow E. and Henery’s budding relationship—and there’s a fair bit of intrigue, as well, as all of the letters come together to show that there’s some kind of mystery, something very strange going on. I finished the book feeling enchanted, excited, and eager for the next installment: I won’t give away any spoilers, but the climax of the book reveals even more mysteries, and leaves Sophy and Vyerin feeling pretty hopeful and excited about what’s to come. It doesn’t end on a downer, for sure!

I have two caveats in recommending this book: one, it’s written in a sort of faux-Regency, partially formal style that a lot of readers seem to have struggled with, and two, sometimes the epistolary format doesn’t quite work. For example, to show us Henery and E.'s first meeting, a random piece of paper is included on which they wrote down their conversation; this sort of makes sense because we’re told it was very loud in the room they were in, but it still comes across as a bit stiff and contrived.

That said, I personally didn’t mind the style at all, and overall adored the book. I have no idea how Cathrall will pull off the second book (maybe it won’t be epistolary as well?), but either way I’m very excited for it, and eager to get my hands on it. I have so many questions, and I very much enjoyed the time spent getting to know Sophy, Vyerin, Henery and E. If you give it a shot, I hope you love it too!

Next time I write a book review, I really should cover Lynne M. Kolze’s Please Write, but I’m always eager to hear about more books about letters, postcards and the mail. You can let me know about books you think would be a good fit in the forum topic I made for that. (To view and post there, you may need to log in and spend some time browsing and participating in the forum first!)

Have you ever heard of the LGBTQ+ VR museum? It’s a virtual reality exhibition that tours the world, featuring artifacts, artwork and stories of LGBTQ+ people. The stories behind these objects are truly moving, and their presentation in an interactive medium makes them even more special. Here’s a preview:

When the exhibition was hosted in London by Deloitte in November 2022, visitors could leave notes at the end, sharing their thoughts. Each card had a prompt like “Advice to my younger queer self” or “I think it’s important to live authentically, because…” or “I’m an LGBTQ+ ally because…” and lots of people left their thoughts on their way out.

After the event, some of these anonymous reflections were picked up by Deloitte’s designers and turned into a collection of beautiful hand-drawn postcards!

When Deloitte heard about Postcrossing recently, they realized this would be the perfect way to spread these postcards out into the world, and have them reach people out there — and we couldn’t agree more! These joyful postcards deserve to make their way into the hands of the people we love and are proud of! Like they say, “A story shared is a person seen”, and we want people to know that we see them.

So Deloitte partnered with us to give out 100 packs of 5 postcards each, to 100 postcrossers out there! To participate in this giveaway, just leave a comment on this blog post telling us who you would send one of these postcards to. Maybe to someone you love? Or someone you know who could use a bit of encouragement and support? Or maybe you would save it for the next person who mentions being part of the LGBT community on their Postcrossing profile? We want to know how far and wide these postcards will travel!

This giveaway will run for 2 weeks, and Paulo’s random number generator will select 100 winners when the giveaway closes. We’ll post the winners on this blog post then, and if you’re a winner, you’ll also receive an email from us. Good luck, everyone!

At last! The day has finally come in which we see kiwis “flying” to deliver all those postcards from New Zealand. Look at them!

Aren’t these just gorgeous? You can’t really see it in these pictures, but the birds have a fancy overgloss coating! 😍 And the maxicards… perfection! It’s so exciting to see photos of the stamp, and not just a digital version. It’s real!

The reception from the community to this new Postcrossing themed stamp has been brilliant — not just from New Zealanders, but also from many postcrossers in other countries, who have pre-ordered some on the NZ Post shop for their upcoming visits or just to keep. We know postal workers have been super busy packaging those orders, and they should be popping up in everyone’s mailboxes very soon. If you manage to grab hold of some, or if one day you receive one of these on a postcard, do share some photos on the forum or on social media and tag us — we’d love to see them!

This coming Sunday, postcrossers in Auckland are meeting at the Wattle Downs café to celebrate the stamp launch and make use of their cute new maxicards. If you’re in the area, come join them for some friendly chat and postcard writing!