Pen Pal Match-Up Spring 2023

We’re running another Pen Pal Match-Up!

 

 

We’ve done this in the past, and are following the same format. It generally works, although every once in a while someone gets a bum match, and for that I’m really sorry.

 

1. Write a letter of introduction to your new pen pal.
2. Include your mailing address at the top of your letter of introduction.
3. On a separate piece, let me know if there is something you want me to know before I match you up, including:

1. Any previous matches I’ve made for you
2. If your friend is also entering and you don’t want to be matched up
3. Something personal you’d like for me to know when I make a match        

4. Mail it to me at the Studio Shop:

 

Wonder Pens Studio Shop

290 Gerrard Street East

Toronto, Ontario

M5A 2G4

Canada

 

5. I will make the matches, mail your letter of introduction to your new pen pal, and your new pen pal’s letter to you.

 

I would love to have all entries in by June 18th, 2023. It does take me a while to match them, so if yours arrives a bit late, of course I’ll do my best to include yours as well.

 

General thoughts:

 

This is a free pen pal match up.

 

If you have a lot of particularities about who you’d be willing to write to, please consider entering our pen pal match-up carefully. Because everyone only gets one match, your match will not have a pen pal if you decide you don’t like them.

 

You will likely get a Canadian pen pal (whether you are Canadian or international). If you are outside of Canada, and you would like a pen pal from the country you are from (e.g. You are from the US and you would like a US pen pal), know that this is highly unlikely.

 

The more detail you put into your letter of introduction, the more I can get a picture of you and hopefully find you a good match. While I consider things like gender, age, family, lifestyle and hobbies, which make for good conversation via correspondence, there is also an element of personality that cannot always come across with just a few bullet points.

 

If you don’t hear from your pen pal, I recommend trying a second letter after several weeks. Sometimes things get lost in the post! (Not often, I admit.) More likely, your pen pal may have just had some life circumstances that carried them away, and perhaps a second letter will remind them of the slower pleasures of snail mail. Alas, there is always a chance of cataclysmic life circumstances and a permanent dissolution of what could’ve been, and I’m tremendously sorry for that. I have no way of contacting an MIA pen pal, such as looking them up in any “system” or putting feelers out on IG.

 

I will keep the envelopes for about a month, in case you are having a hard time reading the address on your letter of introduction. Please reach out promptly—wonderliz@wonderpens.ca. I don’t keep any records at all, much less meticulous ones, after a month.

 

Enjoy the ride! I wish for you a lifelong friendship and correspondence, iron sharpening iron, etc. Sometimes you have a correspondence for just a season, and sometimes for longer, but for however long I hope it’s something that gives you pleasure and satisfaction and a little thrill in the mailbox every once in a while.

 

***

 

 

We are home from camping and everyone is recovering. The baby has had 3-4 hour naps everyday, which has also been great for me as all the laundry is cycling through, in addition to winter gear and sleeping bags. Lest you think we are a pristine household, this is literally the first time they’ve ever been washed.

 

But it’s also been great to come home, and head into this final stretch before the summer. The week (weeks) before camping were swamped with lists and ordering things and rummaging around in closets and piles everywhere, and now I’m sorting myself back out as we prepare for the busy, hot and humid weeks with the kids out of school. So far, I’ve ordered sunscreen, and thrown away some unpleasant blackberries from the back of the fridge.

 

The summer weeks seem to be already filling up, with plans for various camps and adventures. The photo above is from the kids swimming lessons, right after returning from our camping trip, me and Junia waiting in the sun, perhaps a sign of what’s to come for the two of us this summer: waiting, reading, journals, snacking, sun, bliss.