What we are

The Postcard Press is a micropress publishing one very short story or poem each month in the form of a 4″x6″ postcard.

Where we came from

Hi. I’m Caitlin. I moved about 600 miles away from the city I grew up in in August 2009. As people do, I got homesick for the family and friends I left behind. Of course, I emailed and called and Facebook’d, but something was missing.

I’m a tactile person; all this electronic contact was nice, but it was no substitute for a hug or a kiss or a punch in the arm. So I started writing postcards. Silly postcards, funny postcards, postcards that probably sounded like they’d been sent from the cave of a hermit who’d been living on her own for just a bit too long.

It wasn’t a hug, a kiss, or a punch in the arm, but there was something satisfying about carrying a stack of handwritten postcards to the mail slot and sliding them inside before I left for work. I sent postcards to my mother, to my old college friends, to my brother’s friends, even to new friends who lived only two blocks away from me.

Now here comes the a-ha moment: my friends really enjoyed getting postcards. It was a surprise in the mail, a bit of silliness, or just a reminder that they had an odd friend who liked them enough to send them postcards. Soon, whenever I went to visit, I’d see a portion of my postcard collection: stuck to a refrigerator with magnets, taped over a desk, hiding inside a cabinet where little eyes couldn’t see (I sent a few racy ones).

When’s the last time you saw a literary magazine stuck to someone’s fridge?

The Postcard Press is about surprise. It’s about laughter. It’s about literature that you read when you get the milk. It’s about being tangible in a digital world.

Have you sent a postcard to someone you love lately?