The Next Chapter: The lost art of handwritten letters

Published 1:30 am Wednesday, May 27, 2026

The letter came in her familiar handwriting with seashell stamps, postmarked from a far away land, enclosed in a teal envelope which reminded me of the color of the sea. She wrote about the cold wind of the “amihan,” the northeast monsoon that was about to depart the island, and about her thriving bay tree soon to be transplanted to a larger pot. My poet friend is one the few people I know who still handwrites her letters and mails them across the ocean to deliver news about her garden and the birds visiting it.

The journalist Phyllis Theroux wrote, “To send a letter is a good way to go somewhere without moving anything but your heart.” That certainly is true, but we seem to have forgotten it.

In the old days, handwritten letters were the norm in maintaining relationships. The telegraph soon disrupted that, followed by the invention of the telephones. Personal updates move from correspondence to conversation in real time. By the 1990’s email became so widely used that even faxing seemed more troublesome than just clicking the “send” button.

When cell phones, texting, and social media arrived, updates become even more constant. Who writes letters anymore when one can send a 140 character text anytime, from anywhere? Now we can broadcast to the world our thoughts, photos, videos, and instantly update nearly every aspect of our lives on Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky, or Tiktok.

These days, the handwritten letter has become an almost archaic tool for everyday communication. It has become an intentional retro act, undertaken out of choice, not necessity. Some people still send handwritten letters as a meaningful gesture to say thank you, to send condolence letters, or send holiday cards. Do young people still send love letters or do they just text their adoring exchange to each other? For the most part, one could say the handwritten letter has been overtaken by technology. Letters that we can read, touch, smell and keep are now such rarities that people could go entire years without ever receiving one.

This is not surprising. In 2010, the state-led Common Core State Standards for K–12 education introduced keyboarding expectations, while cursive, one of handwriting’s most graceful forms, was left out. In March this year, the National Education Association said that 27 states now have laws mandating or encouraging cursive instruction in public schools — up from only 14 a decade ago. Maybe the tide is turning?

Elsewhere, in Britain where red pillar boxes were first introduced in 1854 to facilitate posting mail, a woman named Dinah Johnson started a letter writing venture in 2017 intended “to keep handwritten letters a thing of now rather than just of the past.” The venture became The Handwritten Letter Appreciation Society and now has over 2,000 members in 44 countries.

The founder wrote, “It really just came about because of the need to channel lots of enthusiasm for the love of letter writing. Combined with a muddy windy walk on Peveril Downs and lots of fluffy clouds whizzing past I thought ‘Oh, there’s the Cloud Appreciation Society, isn’t there! We could have The Handwritten Letter Appreciation Society!’ and it went from there.”

The Society’s goals are quite simple — to inspire people to write handwritten letters to each other; to unite letter writers in a bid to boldly cling on to the art of writing letters; to put the fun and meaning back into writing letters; to value the beauty of an individual’s handwriting; to encourage anyone and everyone to put pen to paper and send a letter to someone special; and to gather together in one place everything to do with handwritten letters.

When you sign up, you get a Life Membership with an A4 personalized certificate that says “Members will strive to keep handwritten letters alive by writing every now and then to whomever they wish.”

And that’s all there is to it. To keep it from becoming a lost art forever, we just need to write by hand every now and then to whomever we want, and to keep at it. In line with that aspiration, drop me a line this month and I will send you a handwritten response.

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Ruby E. Carlino is a published writer and former technology analyst. In Sequim since 2018, she’s at home in the garden and brings a broad perspective to her work (rain or shine). She can be reached at nextchaptercolumn@proton.me.