Collaborating on the Open Letters Project

Not long ago, I hit up Jarrod Blundy to give props to his impressive website. After a few emails, he shared his plans to write letters with readers and other writers online, based on Jason Becker's Letters project. I was stoked and on board, so Jarrod and I will write back and forth throughout May. We'll then publish those emails weekly on our respective sites.

Why do I love this?

I really like this initiative, as I've been trying to connect with other bloggers to express my appreciation for their work. Initially, I hesitated to reach out because I wanted to know if they would respond. To my surprise, everyone has been very responsive, and we've had some great email exchanges. I noticed that my responses were becoming almost like blog posts, which is why I find this letter project intriguing. Why not make these conversations public and share them with others?

How it works?

I'll communicate with another writer I met online by responding to emails every week. I'll publish our conversation, referencing the previous message, and we'll keep up this exchange for a whole month. To see an example of how it's done, take a look at Jason's posts so far for examples.

Here are some general guides that both Jarod and Jason have established so far for the project:

1. One letter per week: The first letter will be sent by you in the first week of the month, and I will respond by week 2 of the month, and we will repeat this for weeks 3 and 4. In total, we will have each written 2 letters
2. The person I'm corresponding with will write the first letter.
3. I will respond during the same week. They do not have to write again until the following week.
4. Each letter will be at least 250 words.
5. I will post the correspondent's letter and my response on my blog. They can do the same if they have a blog, and I will gladly link to them.

As I'm writing this, Jarrod and I have already exchanged our first letters, so I look forward to the first blog post of this series soon. Also, if this looks like something you want to do, feel free to reach out at hello@josemunozmatos.com.