"What is healing, but a shift in perspective?” — Mark Doty, Heaven’s Coast Transactional writing — or letter writing — gets you beyond what you thought you could not get over. With all the other ways ...

Letters did not count [as writing]. A woman might write letters while sitting by her father’s sick-bed. She could write them by the fire while the men talked without disturbing them. The strange thing ...

When you're not face-to-face with someone, how do you communicate? A tendency to rely on texting, emailing and social media can constrain possibilities. Even a phone conversation of depth is ephemeral ...

This story was originally published on April 24, 2025, and has been updated. The art of letter writing is not dead. Rachel Syme, a New Yorker staff writer, learned that during the early days of the ...