Pen Pals

When I was a kid, my friend’s mother had a life-long pen pal. I desperately aspired to have a pen pal like this, a friendship that would last for years and exist primarily through letters. I joined a pen pal program that matched people of the same age from around the word who wanted to correspond through letters. I had a total of three pals. But each time was a disappointment as they would quickly lose interest. Being from such different backgrounds, we simply didn’t have enough in common to maintain a relationship at the age of ten or twelve. Each year, I still adorn my Christmas tree with an ornament that the pen pal from Finland sent me. I finally stopped seeking out pen pals for good after the third try failed, but I continued to be captivated by the romance of letter writing. This is probably why I love epistolary novels! These are novels composed almost entirely of letters, journals, or similar types of writing. In my next post, I’ll share an epistolary novel I read recently. Meanwhile, what have your experiences with pen pals been like? In the age of the Internet, I guess we are now all pen pals.