Writing for Direct Mail: The Sun

Yesterday, I received a direct mail piece from The Sun Magazine ... and read every word in the piece! Designed like a miniature version of the magazine, it contains seven fold-out panels alternating pages of photos and text.

When you open the first panel, the piece begins with "Praise for The Sun" including five quotes from two publications, from poet Robert Bly, author Bill McKibbon, and a subscriber. I loved Bly's description of the magazine, saying "it's full of people like a Globe Theatre; it's nourishing like a field of pumpkins; it's like a grandfather who talks to total strangers."

Open the next fold and you find a "Dear Reader" letter from the magazine's founder and editor, Sy Safransky. Sy's letter tells his personal story of starting the magazine, shares what's found in each issue "that celebrates beauty without ignoring the destructive forces around us; a publication whose politics are personal and whose God isn't way up in the sky." And he signs off with an invitation to "join us" (accompanied by a P.S. offering a free trial issue, with no obligation to buy).


The next fold opens to "Readers Write" (personal stories by our readers) and "Interviews" (from a conversation with David Edwards). Remaining panels offer "Fiction" (a short story) and "Nonfiction" (an essay), followed by the "Free Trial Offer" reply card.


Overall, a simply designed direct mail piece that clearly demonstrates the quality of writing and photography in the magazine.

So what did I do after reading the piece? I detached the mailing label from the front of the mailer, placed it in the "Please peel off address label and affix it here" box, and walked to my local post office with the business reply card in hand.

While I have no idea how many people responded to the mailer like I did, I'm confident that people who did will receive a magazine that achieves "the promise" of the direct mail piece -- great writing and great photography in a "handsomely designed" magazine.

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Writing for Direct Mail: The Sun

Four Words

Over 20 years ago, I read Natalie Goldberg's, Writing Down the Bones, and I've read every book she has written over the years. Her books on writing are both great for "practice" as well as for inspiration.

I'm currently rereading Goldberg's Old Friend from Far Away: The Practice of Writing Memoir. One brief chapter offers what I consider her best advice for any writer:

"I could tell you in four words what to do and it will hold you for your writing life. Do you want to know those four? Shut Up and Write."

It doesn't get any clearer than that. Of course, Natalie recommends that writers also take some "dreaming out the window" time and some time for a "noodle walk" between sessions to make space for intuition to enrich one's writing.

So, no more "writer blocks" and much less lollygagging: Shut Up and Write.

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Four Words

"Listening for the Story"

Yesterday I started reading Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot's book, The Third Chapter. In her introduction, the author shares her process for interviewing people for the book. She notes that she employed Eudora Welty's approach of "listening for the story": for its shape, intensity, rhythm, and texture; for its substance and content; for its metaphors and symbolism, for the light and shadows."

I loved how Lawrence-Lightfoot described her many roles: "I was the discerning connoisseur, developing a taste for the shape of their sentences, the cadence of their language, the arc of their stories. I was the artist, painting the landscape, drawing their portraits, sketching in the light and shadows. I was the spider woman, weaving together their life remnants, unsnarling the tangled threads of their stories, casting a net to catch them if they should fall. I was the probing researcher, patiently gathering data, asking the impertinent questions, examining their interpretations with skepticism and deliberation."

The author goes on to say that she "felt deeply engaged in new learning" while hearing the narratives of her interviewees, "echoing and reflecting the curiosity, vulnerability, risk-taking, and passion of their journeys in my own. I looked into their eyes and saw my reflection, the refracted images of my face in the mirror: a sixty-two-year-old woman with 'confessional moments' of my own."

I've conducted hundreds of interviews over the years and have often felt that I was "facing a mirror" as I heard people's stories. But I've never read such a beautiful description of the process. Thank you, Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot!

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"Listening for the Story"

Defining the difference in genre (Melissa Hart)

One of the writer's blogs I read is Melissa Hart's "Butt to Chair." Her recent post titled "What's My Genre" takes on a workshop student's question:

“How can you tell the difference between an article, an essay, and a short story?”

I enjoyed Ms. Hart's response. And picked a few blackberries hanging over my fence!

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Defining the difference in genre (Melissa Hart)