Weekly Writing #1

Epistolary Explorations

My immediate thought, when asked about epistolary explorations, is to think about the impact letters have on my daily life: my mother makes me hand write thank you notes for all of my birthdays, my grandmother writes to me in college and send me $20 every time, I write to my friend you in in the navy because it is my only form of communication with him. Letters surround my daily life and although I find myself turning more towards technology, it will never take the place of paper and pen. Epistolary explorations means understanding why writing letters is so important both in our history and today. So much more can be discovered from a letter than a text message based on their handwriting, parchment, ink, if there are stains, etc. When it comes to letters the possibilities are endless and I am particularly excited to learn about love letters. My mother still has all the letters her and my dad wrote to each other in college saved in a box. I look forward to seeing how these types of letters change throughout history. Also as someone who is so used to reading passage of people addressing masses it will be fascinating to see the effect of having an individual reader in mind changes the understanding or importance of the letter. While I am ecstatic to be taking this course, I am a bit concerned about the blog format and sheer amount of writing. I am not great with technology and as previously stated I prefer paper and pen, so the blog aspect of thus course is a bit daunting. Also, I do very well with creative writing but once I need to start interweaving sources I get confused so I plan to work harder on my writing capabilities to bring them up to a college level. Overall I can’t wait to hone my writing skills and learn some interesting information in the process.