Postcards Are Important
Carmen
Carmen spent six years at Autostraddle, ultimately serving as Straddleverse Director, Feminism Editor and Social Media Co-Director. She is now the Consulting Digital Editor at Ms. and writes regularly for DAME, the Women’s Media Center, the National Women’s History Museum and other prominent feminist platforms; her work has also been published in print and online by outlets like BuzzFeed, Bitch, Bust, CityLab, ElixHER, Feministing, Feminist Formations, GirlBoss, GrokNation, MEL, Mic and SIGNS, and she is a co-founder of Argot Magazine. You can find Carmen on Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr or in the drive-thru line at the nearest In-N-Out.
Carmen has written 919 articles for us.
my dad has been out of the country twice for work and has sent my sister and i a postcard each time. he wrote a little note on each one with his lovely sense of humor but also different for both of us since we’re pretty much opposites. probably the best souvenir he got for me at least in my opinion
I’ve never gotten a postcard, not that I can recall, anyway.
I’ll send you one. I have boxes full. They’re beautiful things.
Thank you, that’s kind of you to offer, but I’m not comfortable giving my address to a stranger over the internet on a publicly visible website. I’m sorry.
I have always loved receiving and sending postcards, I don’t save many things but I always keep postcards. There is something special about them whether they be vintage and cool, or tacky and awful purposefully, or sent because “this reminded me of you”.
Let me send you one? :)
Heard about Postcrossing? Try!
One must read all the comments before replying.
I have sent a postcard to Russia through Postcrossing. Yet to receive one.
People interested in postcards should sign up for Postcrossing. (More info can be found at http://www.postcrossing.com). I signed up for it 4 years ago at the suggestion of a friend. I recently re-signed up for it. I’ve gotten some sweet postcards.
I love Postcrossing so much.
I have been a lifelong postcard sender and recipient. I just lost the dear and beloved person who sent me the most postcards in my life, but I’m determined to carry on the tradition. It’s the most perfect way of getting little reminders, constantly and in little sweet doses, that you are loved.
This is awesome! I have been doing the same! My friends calls me ‘vintage’ but I do LOVE receiving postcards! And the unexpected ones are the best ones!
Yes, this. I do this every time I go anywhere!
Thanks for this lovely little narrative, Carmen. I always go through the postcards at second hand shops and I collect them every place I travel to…I didn’t really understand why before but I get it a little more now.
I adore sending postcards. And they just keep coming up in everything I read. Yesterday in a magazine, the author suggested sending a postcard every day for a month.
I’m totally gonna do it.
So, like, pm me your address if you want a random postcard from Australia.
I love collecting postcards of all the places I’ve been–or just the kitschiest most touristy ones where there’s a donkey wearing a hat or something. I love both keeping them and sending them.
In fact, yesterday I sent a postcard from Portland to my nana and one to a friend, and I had to make doubly sure I had the right address because one included the sign from a strip club and one was a nice innocuous landscape picture.
I made a postcard for my girlfriend and mailed it to her while she was studying in France! They’re awesome little inventions.
I love postcards !!! I travel a lot so when I am away or 3 of my friends are, we send each other postcards.
Every single time that I get one, I feel that I want to cry …. the feeling is overwhelming doesn’t matter that we just had a quick text session on whatsapp.
We are together because of those postcards !!!!
My postcard buddies are 1 Canadian, 1 Brazilian and 1 Mexican, so those 5×7 in are really important in my life.
Love this !!!!!
Postcards are awesome. I hate that the art of letterwriting has reduced so much but postcards are a great way to keep that alive a little bit and require so little effort. I’ve just started a postcard exchange with a Twitter pal who lives in Canada & I’m looking forward to building up a little library of them.
Postcards are the best. Even more so when they are crafted at A-camp and have glittery-gold mustaches on them or when they say things like “butch it up” :)
Carmen, I always love your articles. The postcards are little glimpses into your life and your relationships and I love it.
Also: I just realized that I’ve never in my life sent a postcard. I want to fix this, but I don’t know who I would send it to or what I would say.