I joined Postcrossing a couple of months ago and now it’s taking over our kitchen wall—in the best way. This is a site for exchanging postcards with people around the world. Hmm, “exchange” isn’t the right word because these aren’t reciprocal swaps where you send a card to someone and get one back from the same person. Instead, you create a profile and then you’re given the name and address of another user. You send a postcard to that person. When he receives it, he registers the card, which prompts the system to send your address to someone different. In the beginning, you’re allowed to send up to five cards at once. As people begin to receive and register your cards, your maximum increases. Not that you have to send out five, six, seven cards all at once. You can do it one at a time if you like.
So far we have sent out ten cards and received eight—from Russia, Ukraine, Slovakia, Taiwan, India, Switzerland, Germany, and Finland! As you can see, we’re taping them to the wall above our world map. So much fun. This is a pretty delightful way to combine the joys of snail mail with a whizbang dose of world geography.
Picturebook authors get the best snail-mail. A huge thank you to all who send it!
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Here I have all my paper pieces cut out. Now I just need to arrange them and get them glued down.
Tada! Kicking it old school! Snail mail is the best...love to send it...love to get it.
I don’t DO snail mail, but I pass notes in class and the last note I wrote before Summer Vacation changed my life. I had scribbled the usual. Same B.S. to Jody about the same lame things that always bug me about high school and then my Daily Six. It’s what we do everyday, she has her six I have mine. I can’t really remember what was up with the number six. But that’s what it’s always been and that’s what we always do.
Everyday Jody and I rate the top six guys we’d do it with if we ever had a chance, that is if they ever knew we existed. You know, the guys we’ll never do it with. Okay, so we don’t write down names or anything. Just initials and a number. The number of BJs we’d give them looking like that. Five was the most any guy ever got. We knew each other’s Sixes by heart and they hadn’t changed in years until Billy showed up on our high school steps in April and by May he’d bumped Derek Eddy off my list. Even though Derek was beyond gorgeous and had a summer house on the lake and consistently rated a 4, there was something about Billy. Something about hot, new guys that made a girl like me think about him day and night. Nights especially.
So when I filled in Billy’s name in the spot that used to read D. E. and gave him a 5 and folded it up and slid the note across the floor to Jody in English that B*tch Nicole booted it in Billy’s direction and Billy bent down and picked it up. He read the “To” and eyed Jody and even the new guy, Number 5, knew I was her best friend because the next thing he did was stare me down with his laser green eyes and he looked so amazing I had to look away. And since he connected the dots between me and Jody, he knew we were best friends which meant that I was more on his radar than any other boy who’d ever been on my Six before. And I wanted to throw up. Because I wrote his WHOLE name and because none of my other Sixes ever looked at me before. He put the note in his pocket and I silently screamed inside for the whole rest of class. Nicole had the biggest grin on her face and went up to him right when the bell rang. And instead of getting into the drama with Nicole, Billy walked over to Jody and handed her the note all the while keeping his eye on me. I grabbed the note out of Jody’s hand ready to scratch Billy’s name out with my big black pen but I just couldn’t. Of all the boys I’d ever known, who made my Six or not, no boy had ever looked at me like Billy had.
By: Kristin Nelson,
on 3/19/2008
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STATUS: Finally getting around to blogging today.
What’s playing on the iPod right now? CALLING ALL ANGELS by Train
It’s the end of the era, and I have to say it makes me a little sad. Today Sara and I decided to no longer respond to query letters sent to us by snail mail. As much as it pains me to be one of “those” agencies that doesn’t respond to writers, it just doesn’t make sense to spend the time, the resources, and sacrifice the poor trees to kindly mail people a letter that informs them that we only accept inquires electronically.
We have done everything in our power to make the information of how to submit to us as widely available and easy to access as possible—both on the web and via print mediums.
Most things sent to us over the snail mail transom don’t remotely fit with what we clearly state we are looking for and it’s time to stop wasting paper, ink, and manpower on responding. From the ones we have received in the past, it’s obvious that the writers who haven’t contacted us via our submission guidelines are not researching and targeting us specifically.
From this day forward, anything received via snail mail goes into the recycling bin that is picked up every other month by our shredding service.
But if you send that query by email, we do read each and everyone that comes in and we do respond (although we can’t guarantee that a reply will reach you as we are often foiled by spam filters etc.)
So save that tree. Go electronic.
René Colato Laínez
This poem was published in the Spanish Children's Magazine, Revista Iguana (July-August 2005)
http://www.nicagal.com
El calor del mes de agosto
El calor del mes de agosto
me manda derechito al mar
a correr, a jugar y a nadar
con un delfín y un calamar.
El calor del mes de agosto
llena de arena mis manos
y hago con mis hermanos
castillos y dragones tiranos.
El calor del mes de agosto
llena de sudor mi frente
le pego a la pelota muy fuerte
y me mojo en una fuente.
El calor del mes de agosto
siempre hace agua mi boca.
Me como un elote en la roca
y carne asada en la troca.
Take a look at these summer books. Get a hat, a lemonade and enjoy reading.
From the Bellybutton of the Moon and other summer poems/Del ombligo de la luna y otros poemas de verano by Francisco X. Alarcon. Illustrated by Maya Christina Gonzalez.
Coral y espuma, abecedario del mar por Alma Flor Ada. Illustrado por Vivi Escrivá.
Icy watermelon / Sandía fría by Mary Sue Galindo. Illustrated by Pauline Rodriguez Howard.
Hello Ocean: Hola Mar by Pam Munoz Ryan. Translated by Yanitzia Canetti. Illustraded by Mark Astrella.
El verano by María Rius. from Catalan by Eulàlia Pérez.
Lemonade sun : and other summer poems by Rebecca Kai Dotlich. Illustrated by Jan Spivey Gilchrist.
Not a copper penny in me house : poems from the Caribbean by Monica Gunning. Illustrated by Frané Lessac.
Torch fishing with the sun by Laura E. Williams. Illustrated by Fabricio Vanden Broeck.
How fun! Love your snail mail! And your carrot car is a hoot! Yes, more traveling animals for sure!!
Thank you for visiting my blog and for your comment-- much appreciated! Yes, I love Jayme McGowan's work too!
he's really great jen! so cute as a postage stamp or sticker on an envelope...have you looked into zazzle or vistaprint for your designs?
xOx, sUz