The Art of the Handwritten Note A Guide to Reclaiming Civilized Communication [Hardcover]

From overcoming illegible penmanship to mastering the challenge of keeping straight margins, avoiding smeared ink, and choosing stationery that is appropriate but suits your style, this is a powerful little guide to conveying thoughts in an enduring—and noteworthy—way.

For those who enjoy writing notes, or those who value doing so but find themselves intimidated by the task, acclaimed calligrapher Margaret Shepherd has created both an epistolary tribute and rescue manual. Just as you cherish receiving personal mail, you can take pleasure in crafting correspondence. Love, gratitude, condolences, congratulations—for every emotion and occasion, a snippet of heartfelt prose is included, sure to loosen the most stymied letter writer.Margaret Shepherd is a noted calligrapher and author whose clients include numerous headliners. The author of thousands of personal notes and thirteen instructional books on calligraphy, including the bestsellingLearning Calligraphyand the just publishedLearn Calligraphy(Broadway Books, 2001), she has exhibited her work in many museums and galleries. She lives in Boston.Good Reasons to Stop Making Excuses

Writing by hand makes you look good on paper and feel good inside. Even an ordinary handwritten note is better than the best e-mail, and a good handwritten note on the right occasion is a work of art. It says to the reader, "You matter to me, I thought of you, I took trouble on your behalf, here's who I am, I've been thinking of you in the days since this was mailed, I want to share with you the textures and colors and images that I like." And that's just the unspoken messages, the pleasure anticipated before the reader even reads the words that the pen and paper have inspired you to choose. The reader can reread what you sent and save it and think good thoughts about you. A note can deliver all this for less than a dollar's worth of materials and ten minutes of youl£6