You're listening to Life Kit from NPR.

Hey everybody, it's Mariel.

There is a scene in the Jane Austen novel Pride and Prejudice

where the main character, Lizzie Bennett, receives a letter from her, will they, won't they, hate you, love you, sexy crush man sexy crush man mr darcy he actually hands it to her

in person it's really dramatic and oof when i tell you the anticipation i felt as she opened the envelope

the way i got butterflies in my stomach the first time i read this letter i felt like i was her

that obviously says a lot about the

immersive magic of a good book, but also about the potency of a well-written letter.

The drama, the intrigue, the focused attention that it drums up in the recipient.

Rachel Syme and I are kindred spirits in this way. I loved reading like novels that turned on a letter.

I loved, you know, watching, you've got mail and the shop around the corner and all these sort of films about correspondence and reading Jane Austen novels.

You know, I just loved the idea of letter writing.

Rachel is a writer for the New Yorker,

and she published a beautiful book called Syme's Letter Writer. It is a guide for how to get into

letter writing. And she says there are a lot of reasons to go down this rabbit hole. I think the first one

that is really simple and kind of broad.

It's just that it's enjoyable, that it's fun, that it is a way to spend your life and spend your time that actually has tangible results attached to it and that you're building something with someone else.

You're building a relationship.

You're building an archive.

You're building a body of work.

Not a lot of people can say that about something they do that's just past the time.

It's also a way to stay in the practice of writing, and it can help you form and nurture

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