Postcrossing Blog

Here in Yorkshire, 'tis the season for some cosy reads. It’s chilly outside (…and sometimes inside), and the perfect time to curl up with a hot chocolate and a book. In this case, Sorcery & Cecelia, by Caroline Stevermer and Patricia Wrede. The book has the alternate title of The Enchanted Chocolate Pot (meaning something like a teapot, but intended for serving hot chocolate). It’s not a particularly wintery tale—in fact, it’s set during the London Season in the Regency period, which often meant the months from April to August. Even so, the fact that the plot partially revolves around a chocolate pot means I can’t help but keep thinking about cold days and hot chocolate… Plus, it feels like a very cosy story in general.

Sorcery & Cecelia is a very charming fantasy novel which is narrated entirely by a pair of cousins, writing to each other while one is in London for her first season, and the other remains at home. At first we just read about their day to day activities—new dresses and visits to local clergymen and all the sorts of things respectable young ladies did in the Regency period. But both of them start experiencing unusual events, and as their letters back and forth unfold it becomes clear that their mysteries are linked.

There’s a lot of affection in the cousins’ letters to one another, which is part of what made this such a cosy read to me. They do also each have a romance, which is a little predictable in a way (and one could wish that there were a few letters from the love interests as well, to help round things out)—but there can be something very cosy about that, as well!

The especially fun thing about this novel is how it was written, though! The two authors actually sent each other these letters, building the story up and twining the threads together as they went along. There is a genuine eagerness and excitement about some of the letters, I think, as the authors looked out for the next piece of the story. Obviously the finished product was then edited and tidied up to make it work well, but I still think some of the enthusiasm of the game has been preserved, and it’s great fun.

So if you’re looking for something cosy (whatever season it is for you!) I really think this might do the job. It’s very charming! And as ever, I’d love to hear about the books that feature mail/postcards/etc, fiction and non-fiction in the forum topic I created so people can chat about potential books to review. To view the thread and add your own post, you may need to log into the forum and spend some time browsing and participating in other parts of the forum first, if you haven’t used it before!

Tom Gauld is a Scottish cartoonist and illustrator. He is perhaps best known by postcrossers for The Snooty Bookshop: Fifty Literary Postcards, which celebrates more than a decade of his weekly cartoons in The Guardian.

Tom has authored many books—mostly books for grown-ups, but also one of Clarisse’s preschooler’s favorites. Tom’s newest book was recently nominated for what would be his second Eisner Award. But all the accolades haven’t made him too snooty to do an email interview with Clarisse (aka CStar9)! Phew!

Pretend you’re walking onto a metaphorical sports field as the star player for this interview. What psych-up music should we play?

I’ve only had to choose walk-on music once in my life, for a talk in Madrid at a fancy venue. I overthought it for weeks, swinging between cheesy and pretentious choices, but eventually I plumped for “Let’s Come to an Arrangement” by Martin Creed because it felt suitably upbeat and noisy in a funny, slightly weird way. Plus he is Scottish, like me.

What are some of the elements that define your work across your cartoons, graphic novels, children’s books, and more? In 5 words or less, what do you hope people take away?

I try to use the language of comics in new ways, while bringing in science, literature, lists, diagrams, games, and puzzles. I want my images to be clean and easy to read, but also to have a hand-made quality with a bit of wobble to the lines and hand-written text.

I don’t really have any kind of agenda or big plans to push. I just want to entertain the audience in a reasonably intelligent way and have them go away (in 5 words) “feeling a little bit happier.”

You’ve mentioned that your job is “to be silly about intelligent subjects.” Why books/literature, and why science?

The mercenary answer is that I get paid to draw on these subjects. The Guardian asked me to do weekly cartoons about books about 16 years ago. Then New Scientist hired me about 8 years ago to do science cartoons. But I don’t think they would have asked if there wasn’t something in my work already that suited the subjects. Certainly I couldn’t have made so many if I wasn’t interested in these subjects.

On some level, literature and science are both about trying to understand the world. There is enough in that (or in people failing to understand the world) to keep me going. Plus, new stories come up every week about advances in science or happenings in the literary world and these can inspire cartoons.

You submit a weekly cartoon for both The Guardian and New Scientist. What do you do about creative block? Is there a strip you can point to and say, that was HARD WON?

Weekly deadlines really help me avoid creative block. I have no choice but to hand in something by a certain day, so in a way, that frees me from feeling it has to be perfect.

Some weeks I can’t come up with anything that feels really good to me, so I just have to take my least bad idea and make it work as well as possible. And sometimes (quite often actually) I realise later that the ‘least bad idea’ was actually a pretty good idea. I just was too tied up in the creation to be a good, objective judge of its merits.

I have a cartoon called “My Library” which is a diagram where books on shelves are colour-coded into categories like “read”, “intending to read”, “pretend I’ve read” and “read, but can’t remember a single thing about it”.

I have a really clear memory of writing and rewriting those categories and feeling that it was a rather mediocre cartoon and saying to myself, “I’ll have to try extra hard next week to make up for this.” But then it was published and people related to it and found it really funny.

I’ve learned that as you rework a joke, you become overfamiliar with it and lose the initial unexpected spark of humour. But that spark will (hopefully) be there for the reader, so you’ve just got to trust that your past-self was onto something.

As for creative blocks on longer projects without weekly deadlines, which is something I struggle with: I don’t have an answer other than to just try to keep going.

What is your relationship to paper broadly, and specifically to postal mail? And, when can we expect your next postcard set?

I like making work that gets shared around. When I left college in 2001, we were still mainly promoting ourselves with printed stuff, so I made a few postcards to put in with orders for my mini-comics. People seemed to really like them, so I self-published a book of postcards called Robots, Monsters, etc. which outsold all my other self-published comics.

I’ve since made one other set of postcards myself. As you know, The Snooty Bookshop was properly published by Drawn & Quarterly. I’ll certainly do another at some point, but I have other projects queued up first.

Who would you say have been your main influencers? How does your work differ from theirs?

One big influence is Edward Gorey (who also did lots of postcards). I discovered his work in the library when I was studying at Edinburgh College of Art, and it just blew me away. He used the tools of comics and picture books in a unique and brilliant way. His work gave me permission to make comics without feeling I had to follow all the rules or fashions of the form.

I think I’m probably more interested in straightforward storytelling and jokes than Gorey was, but my drawing is definitely inspired by his, as is my interest in visual games.

What’s a hobby you love, or a new skill you’re practicing, outside of your work?

My wife’s father has an old house in the countryside which has lots of old dry stone walls, some of which were falling down. Over the last few years, I’ve been putting them back together. It’s extremely satisfying. I’ve fixed all of them now, but there are a few bits I want to redo. It’s fun to do something with my hands where I don’t also have to think about what I’m saying.

Tell us about your studio.

Some years ago, I was in a big shared workspace with lots of other creative people, but the area gentrified and sadly the landlord put the rent up too much, so we all scattered. I’m now in a smaller place with two other artists. I worked at home a bit over covid but I prefer having a separate place to go to work, and some company when I’m there.

In the studio, I have a drawing desk, a computer desk, a “thinking” chair, and lots of books. The room upstairs is let to a musician, so we sometimes get piano music and singing drifting down, especially in summer when the windows are open. It’s very nice.

What’s next for you?

I want to make a new graphic novel. Writing my previous ones (Mooncop and Goliath) was probably the hardest thing I’ve done. I think my brain is more suited to short cartoons, but I love the form of the graphic novel so I keep trying.

I’m continuing to make my two weekly cartoons, so work on other projects has to squeeze into the gaps and can be rather slow. But I’m excited about the possibilities of creating a longer story again.

You can explore more of Tom Gauld’s whimsical world on his website, Instagram, and Twitter. Dive into his weekly comic strips for The Guardian and New Scientist, or take a peek inside his studio to see where the magic happens. For aspiring cartoonists, Tom shares his journey and offers advice, while fans of his work can delve into the inspirations behind his beloved books, from the literary and scientific riffs in Revenge of the Librarians and Baking with Kafka to the heartwarming tales in his children’s book (which is SO GOOD!) The Little Wooden Robot and the Log Princess. And last but not least, don’t miss his reflections on crafting stories on the themes of nostalgia and isolation in his graphic novels Mooncop and Goliath.

And now, for the traditional giveaway! Clarisse is going to send 4 postcards from Tom’s Snooty Bookshop or from his (sadly sold out) new set of cards to 4 randomly picked postcrossers. To participate, you have to tell us one book or scientific discovery you’d recommend to an alien visiting Earth — what would it be? Leave a comment below, and come back this time next week to check out the winners!

If you’ve been following the numbers on the homepage, you know the 80,000,000 postcard will be registered soon… and if you’ve been around for awhile, you know what that means: it’s time to open the guessing game for this big Postcrossing milestone. Here is how it works:

It should be easy: just choose a slot for the date and the minute you think postcard number 80,000,000 will be registered! You can have a look through Postcrossing’s statistics page if that helps… or maybe throw a dart at a calendar, or interpret some tea leaves — anything goes!

And naturally, we have some prizes as well, and this year it’s a veritable prize extravaganza! The 80 million guessing game is being sponsored by papersisters, who have very generously donated a bounty of stationery treasures for our winners:

• The postcrosser whose bet is the exact minute when postcard 80 million gets registered will receive a set of 12 monthly postcards “Travel the year”, an Airmail sticker sheet, a little snailmail notebook, a pen, three different rolls of tape of papersisters designs and their popular “weather” rubberstamp (+ the postcards and stickers mentioned below).
• The 6 next best bets (before or after the registering time) will receive 15 different HPC Happy Postcrossing from… postcards on general topics like seasons and holidays so they can be used globally, plus a set of 30 ID stickers in different designs.

Here are some rules we need to mention: each time slot can only be chosen by one single person, so the first postcrosser to pick that slot gets to keep it. You can change it at a later stage if you’d like, but only from the available time slots left. The bets will be automatically closed when there are 1000 postcards left to postcard 80,000,000. Check the contest page for more details.

Keep sending postcards and refining your guesses, and keep an eye on the counter on the frontpage of the website to know how many postcards still need to be registered. Good luck, everyone!

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!

It’s not surprising that many of our members love stamps. Some collect stamps, others are just fascinated by the variety that’s out there. So that’s this month’s writing prompt!

At the moment, I have a few sets of stamps available. For the UK, I have some first class stamps from the Christmas 2024 collection, and a set of stamps which celebrate the Royal Air Force’s Red Arrows, an iconic aerobatic display team who fly aircraft in close formation and do tricks in the air. Somewhere I still have one stamp left over from Christmas 2023, which I’m saving for a postcard to my grandmother.

For international mail, I need to stock up soon, as you can see! Right now I’m using stamps from the Tutankhamen set, which show a boat model and a guardian statue from Tutankhamen’s tomb. They’re kind of old, and don’t cover full postage, so I use “makeup value” stamps to pay the full postage. The 50p ones still show the Queen’s head for now, but some of the stamps in my photo (like the Christmas 2024 ones and the Red Arrows set) have King Charles III’s head now.

I do have a couple of odd stamps left over—a stamp from the Pride set and one from the recent dinosaur set—that I’m saving for when I get an address of someone who looks like they’d especially appreciate them.

What about you? Do you have any exciting stamps at the moment? Any stamps with stories? We’d love to hear about them here, and you can also write about them on your postcards this month if you’re stumped for what to say!

It’s that wonderful time of the year again when postcards become more than just a happy surprise in your mailbox — they transform into books and help for those who struggle with reading! We’re excited to kick off the 12th edition of the “Cards for Literacy” campaign, celebrating over a decade of partnership with Deutsche Post and helping many people in Germany improve their literacy skills throughout all these years. Let’s keep this December tradition alive and thriving!

If you’re in Germany, it’s time to organize your stationery and make sure you have all the postcards and stamps you need! Every card you send in December (and that’s registered by February 28, 2025) will contribute to this meaningful cause.

As if making a difference weren’t rewarding enough, you’ll also have a chance to win some neat prizes: one €100 voucher and five €50 vouchers for the Deutsche Post Online Shop. The more cards you send, the more chances you’ll have to win. In March 2025, Paulo will tally the total number of postcards sent and funds raised, and the lucky winners will be randomly selected and announced. Last year, we raised an incredible €12,078.30 for Stiftung Lesen, all thanks to your efforts!

If you’re outside Germany, you’re still an essential part of the campaign. By registering the postcards you receive from Germany quickly, you help senders mail their next cards sooner, keeping the momentum going.

Stiftung Lesen continues to do vital work improving literacy for children, adolescents, and refugee families learning German. Literacy skills can open doors and change lives, and we’re honored to support their mission.

And now, all that is left to do is for us to come together and make the 12th year of this campaign truly special. Whether you’re sending or registering postcards, every small action adds up to something extraordinary!

P.S. Postcrossing respects your privacy and will not share your personal information. Full details of the campaign can be found here (in German).