Nowadays, the ‘muse’ has a more tangible sense. Its divine connotations have evolved over time, yet the compulsive power of inspiration remains inexplicable. And it is this power that permeates Soviah Khoriyati’s letter in the upcoming print issue of The Letters Page, where she relates the discovery of her muse Ibu E.
There is, in Jon’s words, ‘a weird tension’ between The Letters Page’s insistence on physical submissions and its simultaneous reliance on digital media. The journal mandates that submissions are sent via post and yet Jon admits that the journal ‘wouldn’t exist’ without the digital tools which are vital for its production.
Sitting down with Jon, are intrigued to learn what drew him to the epistolary theme in the first place. ‘It’s not so much that letters are important, as interesting. There’s more information in a letter that comes in the post – it’s an object that’s moved through space to get to you.’
The more letters we write, the more moments we capture, and the more fragments we preserve, the closer letters come to revealing our complete identity. Letters become our own personal archives, splintered across time and space. Here, I leave you with a splinter of me.
What began as an unsuspecting blog page, advertising itself as ‘the letters page for a journal that doesn’t yet exist‘, soon morphed into a professionally produced journal of which every page was a letters page.
To trace the origins of letters is to trace humanity’s evolution, from necessity to narrative, from survival to expression. Letters serve as proof that human culture hinges on exchanged words between people and the faith that understanding can cross time – something illuminated by the upcoming print issue of The Letters Page.
Letters are important to our latest contributor, Rachael Smart. So much so, that she will send them even when she’s unsure whether they will ever reach their intended addressee. When I ask who received her most recent missive, she reveals that it was Dolgellau, a mountain town in Wales. Or, at least, she hopes it was received.
The return to ‘shed season’ provides our latest contributor, Nicola Varley, with ‘that bit of space to think and drift off and daydream’, discovers the The Letter Page’s Maria Rocha, as she sits down with Nicola to discuss the creative process, her hopes for the future… and cat pictures.
‘The natural beauty of British coastlines has long inspired writers to pick up their pens’, writes The Letters Page’s Amy Plant as she discovers the surprising links between a Virginia Woolf classic and our latest published letter.
Alan Cleaver’s latest book Postal Paths reads like a heartfelt letter to a world that is quietly slipping away: the tactile world of envelopes, stamps, and the steady steps of our rural ‘posties’, writes The Letter Page’s Maria Rocha.
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