838: Letters! Actual Letters!

This American Life

When the best—and perhaps only—way to say something is to write it down.

• Prologue: Ira goes out with a letter carrier, ‘Grace,’ as she delivers mail on her route. He learns about the people who bring us our mail and also how people treat their mail. (11 minutes)
• Act One: Writing a letter decades after an event that shaped her life was the only way that Nicole Piasecki could make some sense of it. (18 minutes)
• Act Two: Yorkshire, 1866. A farmer overcomes his timidity and writes a very important letter to a local beauty. (3 minutes)
• Act Three: When senior editor David Kestenbaum was still a rookie reporter, he wrote an email to a legend. Then he waited...and waited...for a reply. (6 minutes)
• Act Four: A woman writes an unusual letter on behalf of her husband. (1 minute)
• Act Five: Producer Zoe Chace compares the letters a person gets and the letters they wish they got. (12 minutes)

Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org

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