Moving out of two dwellings (and an office), and moving everything into a new one has taken its toll on my posting but having just come back from Iceland, and having just met Craig Oldham of the Hand.Written.Letter.Project, I am re-invigurated and am getting back to the Radio Post. For now, here’s a delightful post office in relatively rural Iceland. I was up there for the Airwaves music festival, which they even makes stamps to celebrate. More reasons, if I needed any more, to love Iceland.

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This beautiful publication dropped in our letterbox of late from a long time reader in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. It runs through the scripts of small sonic IDs that Cape and Islands NPR stations play, followed by a little piece about public radio and how they kept it going there. She sent me two copies and as it’s put out under Atlantic Public Media I will the spare one  to the next letter from another ocean. And you’ll ADORE it.

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The first cards and letters for The Radio Post 3 are arriving, and from New York my friend Siobhán Kane sent this postal treat.

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Some years ago, I made contact with an American radio producer, Julie Shapiro, through Irish radio producer (and Sounds Alive audio festival hero) Julien Clancy. I had sent Julie Shapiro a copy of the Radio Post and we had struck up a hand-written, postal correspondence through a mutual love of the posted word. At some point she was commissioned by the BBC to make a programme on letter-writing and she got in touch to ask if I’d feature in it. Of course I jumped at the chance and recorded my part in the Copenhagen studio of Tim Hinman, an Englander turned popular Danish radio producer and host with the show Third Ear). The show is less than 30 minutes long and the whole thing is worth a listen, my part coming in at the 19 minute mark.

 

 

And if you want more like that, her addition to the amazing 99% Invisible mini radio docs series is all about the US postage stamp and you can find it via her link above.

Last week I was out at Plus Print watching issue 3 roll off the presses. I’m really happy with how it turned out. Away to folding it went then and I got about addressing all the envelopes. Posting the first 100 out this week. Because I’m printing a light ink on a dark paper the printing plate (pictured) is an interesting mix of negative and positive, especially when the light catches parts of it.

 

 

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Hello and thank you for taking time out of your day to look up this website. What was traditionally a one page site to give people the address to write to in order to receive a copy of the Radio Post has now been expanded to provide a form of feedback, and of sharing. I will be posting images of the more interesting postcards or items I get (not personal details, just the visuals) and also flagging things I feel are of interest to Radio Post readers and lovers of analogue.

I rejected a digital component to the Radio Post project for too long. It’s great to finally have a place up here. And as ever, you can only get your free copy of my self-published Radio Post by sending a letter or postcard to me at the address in the sidebar. I will dispatch a copy anywhere in the world in return. Welcome and let’s keep the lines open. Start posting to me now and be the first to receive issue 3 when it comes back smelling beautifully inky from the printed next week.

Oh, and a huge thanks to Cian Fanning who built the site for us.