Today is also the start of Pen Pal

[asakiyume]

In addition to being catalpa day, today is also the day Pen Pal starts. On this day, Em and her friend Small Bill row out into the Gulf of Mexico, and Em throws her message in a bottle into the water.

Here's a (very amateur) picture to commemorate that.



In the next few months, I'll post pictures and things that go along with the letters and diary entries of Pen Pal--but without spoilers. I'm hoping to do a book giveaway on Goodreads, month by month, too, but I'm waiting for word from them, because I want to do it a little differently from the standard way.




ETA: And how nice: a message-in-a-bottle story came my way today, from the icebergs between Nunavut and Greenland to the shores of Ireland:

Article: Emily Chan, "Message in a Bottle: Letter Dropped in Arctic Ocean Found in Ireland"

Comments

[queenoftheskies.livejournal.com]

I love the visual images of Mermaid's Hands.

Re: Em,

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

--If Em had gotten your message, maybe this is what she would have written back--

Dear Cinda,

Thank you for writing back! I am excited my message made it all the way to where you are.

About those bird feathers, my little sister wants to know what kind of bird the feathers are from. Do you think another bird killed it? Here I would guess a Cooper's hawk.

I think I know what you mean by beautiful and scary and sad all at once. Once when I was little my dad took me and my brother fishing with him, just line fishing, and he landed a yellowfin tuna. It was so big, and it thrashed around, and its fins looked like sickles for cutting marsh grass, and I thought maybe it might cut off my dad's hands or my brother's legs if they got too close. And then pretty soon he was just laying there limp and dead, and I felt like a great hero was gone from the sea. I don't normally mourn much for fish, but that time I did.

Do you want to trade feathers? I'll send you one from here and you could send me one from there.

Love Em

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I'm glad!

[harvey-rrit.livejournal.com]

Those pictures may be by an amateur, but the proportions are correct. Most people never do get that right.

[cafenowhere.livejournal.com]

How appropriate then, that today I released a copy of Pen Pal into the "wild"--a little library a few streets down from my house. Libraries are full of messages in bottles.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Yes they surely are! So many worlds living side by side--which reminds me about another post I should do, about thoughts about infinite worlds. . .

Thank you for doing that ♥

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Proportions are hard! And children's proportions aren't the same as adult proportions, which adds to the difficulty, and people in the foreground are larger than people in the background….

anyway, thanks for the words of encouragement.

[xjenavivex.livejournal.com]

This is so cool.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's so lovely!

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

That's a great illustration. If I saw that almost anywhere, I think "That's Em throwing a bottle into the sea..."

[yamamanama.livejournal.com]

That's an awesome picture.

[heliopausa.livejournal.com]

This is lovely to read about, and to see!

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

:-)

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

*happy*

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Yay! That's what I like to hear :-)

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Not as awesome as what's in my *head*, needless to say, but thank you! Glad you liked it.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

very glad ^_^

[yamamanama.livejournal.com]

Very few things come out as amazing as what's in our heads.

Did you listen to that song I linked to?

[littlemoremasks.livejournal.com]

I hope that someday (soon) you put together an album or library or book of all of your doodles and sketches (and your sugar cookies).

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

I'm just coming to this post today because I traveled to a town by the Mediterranean. I wish I would have seen it; I would have thrown a message into the sea in honor of Em and Kaya.

One of my favorite things to do when reading Pen Pal was to look at the dates and see if "important" dates in my life figured. My birthday, as well as Sprout's and J's did. :D Junebug wasn't born at the time, but being a springtime baby, he didn't make it. :P

Re: Em,

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Razor fins, tails, jelly, stings, and whips--oh yes. (Asakiyume here, appreciating this catalogue of the gifts of the prodigies of the prodigious sea.)

Cinda_cite, I saw a moose the other day! My first ever! In the woods in my neighborhood. So big. My friend saw it first; she thought it was a horse at first. But then the ears! And the hump. It was a moose.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

We're talking about the ones from the museum exhibition? Those I did listen to. Or did I miss an entry?

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Sounds suspiciously like work, littlemoremasks!

(but thanks for the vote of confidence in the bits and bobs)

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I ***LOVE*** that three out of four mnfaure family birthdays featured in Pen Pal <3 Makes my day!

[yamamanama.livejournal.com]

Yeah.

I don't think you missed anything recently.

[littlemoremasks.livejournal.com]

In New England there is no division between labor and leisure.

[dudeshoes.livejournal.com]

Nice idea to connect these stories with "Pen Pal." Curious to see your approach to a giveaway on GoodReads.

[oiktirmos.livejournal.com]

sometimes I wish I could unrope our house and see where it might float to.
Me too.
Great sentence. Mark Twain would have approved.