How Mastering the Art of Letter Writing Made Me a Better Writer
An ode to the lost art of letter writing.
We don’t write letters any more.
But when I was a child growing up in boarding school in India, the highlight of my week was the letter I wrote back home to my family, and the one I received in return. During the holidays as well, the only way you could stay connected to your friends was to write to them. This was long before mobile phones existed, and long-distance calls were difficult to make because two states in India can sometimes be further apart than Denmark and Italy. So, you spent hours painstaking writing your letters, always by hand, and walking long distances to post them.
Some of the most memorable letters I received were from my grandmother. When my grandmother wrote in English, she was not always grammatically correct. But she had a way with words. She was always inimitably Leah Daniels, and her personality always came shining through, even if she had to invent a new word to express her ideas. It was my first lesson in developing a distinctive voice.
Writing a memorable letter is indeed an art, and shapes you as a writer, in ways you cannot imagine.
Here are some of the most important lessons I learnt while writing letters when I was growing up.
