Tired of sending ordinary emails with unlikeable fonts and impersonal writing tools?

The new Bubbles app lets you send emails loaded with handwritten text, doodles, photos and more. You can turn your most important emails into beautiful digital letters. AppNewser has all the details:

You can use it to create collaged messages which include images, drawings, and handwriting. Simply login to the app with your Facebook account, then begin to create a message. You can use your tablet computer or a digital drawing tablet as a surface to write your messages which will show up on the screen. You can save your work as a PDF which is then attached to the email message. You can send these messages to anyone but if you get your friends to sign up then they can “unhook” your message and add their own doodles and notes to the same page.

Do you miss writing letters the old fashioned way? In February, author Mary Robinette Kowal will host her annual A Month of Letters Challenge, as writers around the world will try to post a letter a day.

This year, the challenge will include letter writer profiles, forums and lots of extra goodies. You can sign up at this link:

In the month of February, mail at least one item through the post every day it runs. Write a postcard, a letter, send a picture, or a cutting from a newspaper, or a fabric swatch. Write back to everyone who writes to you. This can count as one of your mailed items. All you are committing to is to mail 23 items. Why 23? There are four Sundays and one US holiday. In fact, you might send more than 23 items. You might develop a correspondence that extends beyond the month. Write love letters, thank yous, or simply notes to say that you miss an old friend. Let yourself step away from the urgency of modern life and write for an audience of one. You might enjoy going to the mail box again.

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Over at The Rumpus, middle-grade author Cecil Castelluci will coordinate the new Letters For Kids program–a subscription service giving readers mail from authors who write for kids.

According to the launch page, participants will receive “two letters a month written by middle-grade authors like Lemony Snicket/Daniel Handler, Adam Rex, Kerry Madden, Natalie Standiford, Susan Patron, Rebecca Stead, Cecil Castelluci, and more.” The service will cost $4.50 per month for U.S. readers, and $9 international readers. The project will expand upon The Rumpus’ Letters in the Mail program for adults.  Check it out:

Some of the letters will be illustrated. Some will be written by hand. It’s hard to say! We’ll copy the letters, fold them, put them in an envelope, put a first class stamp on the envelope, and send the letters to you (or your child) … Six is pretty much the perfect age to start checking your mailbox for actual letters. And if you’ve waited until you were ten, well, you’re four years behind but still, it’s not too late. And if you’re sixteen, that’s OK, there’s still something of the kid left. And if you’re sixty, well… OK. You’re young at heart.

When was the last time you wrote a letter? If you write one letter, you will get five letters back in a new program from The Rumpus.

The Rumpus successfully tested the Letters To Each Other program earlier this year, so the literary site has opened up the letter-writing experience to all readers. This GalleyCat editor already mailed his letter. Here are all the details, from The Rumpus founder Stephen Elliott‘s email newsletter:

You send in a letter, single page (double sided OK) and include a regular size #10 self addressed stamped envelope. We’ll make copies of all the letters and send five letters back to you in the stamped envelope you provided. Please include at least $2 to cover the cost of copying, pizza for envelope stuffers, etc. Easy peezy. Send one letter, get five letters back. Send your letter to: Karen Duffin, 3288 21st Street #202, San Francisco, CA 94110. Letters must be postmarked no later than June 15. If you don’t live in the United States please make a donation using Paypal for at least $3. Print out the receipt for your donation and include it with your letter and self addressed envelope. International letter writers don’t need to include a stamp on their return envelope.

Novelist Thomas Steinbeck received a mountain of letters from his father, John Steinbeck. Over at The Hairpin, the son of the late Nobel Prize winning author talked about what he learned from these letters.

Follow this link to read a letter Steinbeck wrote about relationship advice. Thomas has written a number of books, most recently The Silver Lotus. Here’s an excerpt from the interview:

my father sent me this very long letter, and he had very tiny handwriting — he wrote by hand — and it was like an 18-page letter. It took me a week to decipher this thing, because of his handwriting, primarily. And when I got to the very end of it, I noticed at the very bottom, he said, “Son, I want to apologize. I would’ve sent you a note but I didn’t have the time!”

Meaning, that ultimately, the greatest amount of time in all writing is spent editing. My father said there’s only one trick to writing, and that’s not writing, that’s writing and rewriting and rewriting and rewriting. Like sculpture. I mean, the first thing off the top of your head isn’t the most brilliant thing you ever thought of. And then when you’re writing about it, when you want others to understand what you’re still talking about, then it really requires that you edit yourself really, really well, so that other people can comprehend it.

In 1932, Aldous Huxley published Brave New World, a novel about an ominous future where the government keeps the population under control with drugs and entertainment. In 1949, George Orwell published Nineteen Eighty-Four, a novel about an ominous future where the government keeps the population under control with oppressive surveillance.

Who do you think had a more prophetic vision of the 21st Century? Today Letters of Note featured a long letter that Huxley (pictured, via) wrote to Orwell explaining why he thought future rulers would follow Brave New World more than Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Check it out: “Within the next generation I believe that the world’s rulers will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging and kicking them into obedience. In other words, I feel that the nightmare of Nineteen Eighty-Four is destined to modulate into the nightmare of a world having more resemblance to that which I imagined in Brave New World. The change will be brought about as a result of a felt need for increased efficiency.” (Via Reddit)

Last month, writers around the world took the Month of Letters Challenge, a month-long letter writing marathon created by novelist Mary Robinette Kowal.

We interviewed Kowal on the Morning Media Menu podcast today, finding out how she wrote more than 300 letters in February. The author of Shades of Milk and Honey and Glamour in Glass shared how a month of writing letters influenced work on her novels.

Kowal explained: “I said that people could write to Jane, the main character of my novels and I would answer using an actual quill. She’s been getting one or two letters a day. I’m glad she isn’t getting the volume I’ve been getting. It’s been a great exercise, people will ask me questions about the world that I haven’t thought about … it gives me an opportunity to let my character think of things that are outside the plot of my novel.”

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With a few days left in the Month of Letters Challenge, the UK Royal Mail has issued six “gloriumptiously” collectible stamps for Roald Dahl fans.

Here’s more from the description page: “Six of Dahl’s most popular children’s stories feature on the Stamps – Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Fantastic Mr Fox, James & the Giant Peach, Matilda, The Twits and The Witches. As many of Dahl’s best loved stories have been illustrated by Quentin Blake it made perfect sense to use his illustrations for these Stamps.” What is your favorite stamp?

Each stamps contains a pivotal moment in the Dahl stories, from Mr. and Mrs. Twits‘ upside-down escapades to Charlie Bucket‘s golden ticket discovery. Prices for the stamps start at 66 pence (approximately $1.03 USD). A sheet of six sells for £4.66 (approximately $7.30 USD).

You may find yourself at some point (as this GalleyCat editor did last week) in an unfamiliar city searching for a mailbox for your letter or manuscript.

If you need to find a mailbox, simply visit the free Mailbox Map site. You can search for FedEx drop boxes, UPS stores and simple mailboxes near your address–the site will generate a Google Map showing all the mailboxes around you.

Writers around the world are taking the Month of Letters Challenge this month. To keep the letter-writers in the audience motivated in February, we are posting letter writing resources, tools and inspiration.

Wish you could save your handwritten notes or letters in a digital format? Try using the Evernote app to preserve digital copies of your handwritten material.

Simply install the free app and snap a smartphone picture of your next letter–Evernote will save a copy of your letter into a cloud-based server. Follow these links to download the free app for your mobile device: iOS or Android or Blackberry orWindows Phone 7.

Check it out: “Evernote helps millions worldwide remember anything and everything that happens in their lives. Use Evernote to take notes, save interesting web pages, create to-dos and shopping lists, attach images and PDFs, and so much more. Then, watch as it all instantly synchronizes from your Mac to your smartphone, tablet and the Web, allowing you to find your memories at any time from anywhere.”

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