This Is Your Sign to Write a Letter

It’s Universal Letter Writing Week: slow down, pick up a pen, and reach out to someone who still matters.

Dear Reader,

In New York City, we have several weeks dedicated to celebration: Fleet Week, Fashion Week, Broadway Week, and the Feast of San Gennaro to name a few. But there is one week—celebrated nationally—that is my true favorite: Universal Letter Writing Week (January 11–17).

With letter writing supposedly on the same trajectory as DVDs and shoulder pads, I take this as a very good sign that letters might have a little more staying power than we think.

Yes, I’ve been encouraging you to write letters for the past year, but now you have an entire week to put your pen where your paper is. But don’t do it for me. In fact, it’s not even really for the person receiving the letter.

It’s for you.

What better excuse to reach out to someone you haven’t communicated with in a while? Or maybe there’s someone you’ve been meaning to share news with. Or even your significant other—the one you live with. (Yes, really.) Why not write them a letter? Express your thoughts or feelings. Heck, write about replacing the washing machine, just write!

It isn’t what you write that matters. It’s that you took the time to show someone you care.

I have hundreds of letters from exes from the late ’80s and ’90s. Were we living far apart? No! Some lived in the same town, and believe it or not, in one case we were living together. Those letters didn’t always need to be love notes. They just needed to be present. To say, Hi. I’m right here. Thinking about you. (Today, these letters might include the line: Look up from your phone for a second.)

Or maybe write to someone from your past. The letters I had the most fun writing last year were to people from high school, college, and my twenties. I’m nostalgic (no secret there), and writing to them felt like stepping into a time machine and reaching back into old versions of myself, remembering stories I hadn’t thought about in years.

And when they wrote back? Wowzah.

A few letters from people who received a letter from me last year.

In my mind, they were still frozen in time: young, familiar, unchanged. In reality, many now had children older than we were back then. Entire lives had unfolded while I wasn’t looking.

With time seemingly flying faster every year, there’s something about writing to someone from your past that slows it all down. It helps me see my life as longer, fuller, stitched together by real moments and real people.

There doesn’t need to be an endless stream of letters back and forth. It doesn’t have to reopen a friendship—or a relationship—though sometimes it can. For me, it was simply an acknowledgment: We were there. This mattered. This happened.

And maybe that’s enough.

So if you’ve been waiting for (yet another!) sign, here it is. A pen. A piece of paper. A name you haven’t written in a while.

Happy Universal Letter Writing Week!

With love (and a stack of stationery waiting to be sent to more unsuspecting recipients),

Felice

P.S. If you write a letter this week (and I hope you do), I’d love to hear about it. Who did you write to and how did it feel to slow down and put it in ink?

SONG OF THE WEEK

Note to Self by Randy Houser

Felice Cohen is an award-winning author, best known for squeezing big ideas into small spaces—like her 90-square-foot NYC apartment (yes, really). Her books include Half In: A Coming-of-Age Memoir of Forbidden Love, 90 Lessons for Living Large in 90 Square Feet, and What Papa Told Me, with praise from legends like Elie Wiesel and Rita Mae Brown. Her viral YouTube tour has racked up over 25 million views—mostly from people wondering where she kept her shoes. More at felicecohen.com.

CALLING ALL BOOK LOVERS AND CRUISE ENTHUSIASTS! I’m thrilled to announce I’ll be one of six featured authors on The Literary Adventures at Sea III Alaska Cruise this spring. Picture this: a week of storytelling, author panels, and book signings while cruising to Alaska—all in collaboration with Sapphire Books. My fellow authors include Georgia Beers, Virginia Black, Isabella, and Karelia & Fay Stetz-Waters. Learn more HERE.