Saturday, January 8, 2011

“Jail mail”

In the news:

In prisons across the country, with their artificial pre-Internet worlds where magazines are one of the few connections to the outside and handwritten correspondence is the primary form of communication, the art of the pen-to-paper letter to the editor is thriving. Magazine editors see so much of it that they have even coined a term for these letters: jail mail.

The Handwritten Letter, an Art All but Lost, Thrives in Prison (New York Times)
[A better way to do that first sentence: “In the artificial pre-Internet world of prison, where magazines are one of the few connections to the outside and handwritten correspondence is the primary form of communication, the art of the pen-to-paper letter to the editor is thriving.” Or more simply, “In the no-Internet world of prison,” &c.]

comments: 1

Richard said...

Hmmm . . . which is more "artifical": the "pre-Internet world" or the "post-"?