{"id":2822,"date":"2026-02-24T10:22:36","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T15:22:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/?p=2822"},"modified":"2026-02-24T10:22:36","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T15:22:36","slug":"reviving-the-art-of-letter-writing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/?p=2822","title":{"rendered":"Reviving the Art of Letter Writing"},"content":{"rendered":"
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One of my favorite books in high school was The Lazlo Letters: The amazing, real-life correspondence of Lazlo Toth, American!<\/em> I still have my original, well-worn copy. Written by Don Novello<\/a>, better known as Father Guido Sarducci and a fixture on Saturday Night Live in its early days, the book is a compilation of the letters written and received by the fictional character Lazlo Toth. Like Stephen Colbert in The Colbert Report<\/em><\/a>, Novello adopts a conservative persona that was funny at the time, but now seems almost commonplace and maybe not so funny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Halifax Examiner<\/em>, in its celebration of the upcoming 50th anniversary of the book, provides a sample of letters <\/a>Toth wrote to everyone from Richard Nixon about how badly the media mistreated him to the CEO of RJ Reynolds on their shared disdain for the anti-smoking lobby. He received earnest replies that were often funnier than the original letter. Benjamin Errett at Get Wit Quick provides more background on Toth’s work<\/a><\/em>, calling it “epistolary trolling.” On the Media<\/em> recorded a fun interview<\/a> with Novello on the 30th anniversary of the first volume. You can borrow the original book <\/a>with a free Internet Archive subscription. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Letter writing, in general, is coming back in fashion<\/a>. The Sunday Letter Writing Project<\/a>, begun by a British stationary shop in 2023, encourages the practice, suggesting generally quiet Sunday afternoons as the perfect time to pen a missive to a friend. If you don’t have a ready correspondent, they provide a list of pen pals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was an avid letter writer in my early days. I loved the whole ritual: pouring a beverage, putting on music, pulling out the good stationary and the fountain pens and settling in to talk with my friends and family via the written word. We exchanged letters so I would also have their most recent correspondence and always started by responding to what they had written, answering questions and commenting on their news. I continue the practice to some extent, sending handmade cards for holidays, usually with a short note to the recipient. Not quite the same as a letter but at least a foundation for a larger practice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My book group recently read The Correspondent<\/a><\/em>, Virginia Evans’ debut epistolary novel that features Sybil, an elderly woman who has spent her life writing letters to friends, family and luminaries. It was a wonderful story but also an homage to what was considered a dying art. One woman in the group shared that she still writes letters, even exchanging notes with her neighbor down the street. When I got home from the meeting, I knew I would write her a letter. I received a lovely reply and plan to send her another note soon. I have written to a young friend who recently relocated to another state. I am hoping to continue, starting with my former correspondents. We text and email and message in social media Words with Friends, but I imagine they would welcome a letter, both for the news and the nostalgia. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of my favorite books in high school was The Lazlo Letters: The amazing, real-life correspondence of Lazlo Toth, American! I still have my original, well-worn copy. Written by Don Novello, better known as Father Guido Sarducci and a fixture on Saturday Night Live in its early days, the book is a compilation of the … Continue reading Reviving the Art of Letter Writing<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[9,42],"tags":[767,766,562,769,768,770],"class_list":["post-2822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-old-media","category-writing","tag-don-novello","tag-lazlo-toth","tag-letter-writing","tag-the-correspondent","tag-the-lazlo-letters","tag-virginia-evans"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4X3L0-Jw","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2822"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2822\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2826,"href":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2822\/revisions\/2826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}