Creative Writing Workshop: Letters to Strangers

As you know, we did two creative writing workshops in EOI Santiago and our satellite school in Ribeira, focusing on several basic aspects of the writing craft,  with the aim of getting people interested in writing on a personal level.

Just to tell you an anecdote regarding this appreciation and renewed interest in handwritten texts: Last week our copy machine broke down and we had to call the technician. I left a handwritten note with our caretaker at the front desk detailing the problem and indicating the reference number and so on. Well, yesterday when he came to fix the machine, he gave me back my note and he said he had been shocked at receiving it because nowadays he mainly receives Whatsapp messages to give him that information.

With the aim of offering strangers the chance to read a charming, heartwarming message, in our workshop we prepared several uplifting, optimistic short letters to be delivered to strangers. We have them ready to be sent out into the world, as you can see in the picture below, and hopefully, if the receivers are not too shy, we will be able to track their reactions by means of the hashtag #snailmaileoisantiago. So, if you are a student at IES Número 1 de Ribeira (either at high school or at the EOI level), keep your eyes peeled if you would like to get one of these letters!

Letters to strangers written by students at EOI sección Ribeira

If you would like to know more about what inspired me to do this exercise, I strongly encourage you to listen to this TED talk by Hannah Brencher, "Love Letters to Strangers".

And you can also visit some websites with similar intents or purposes: Love Letters 2 Strangers, which first started in  started in September 2011 by Ashley Green. With only a handful of blank note paper, pens and stickers, Ashley began to write words of inspiration, encouragement and love to people she had never met; or Letters from Strangers, which works a little differently, you send them a letter written anonymously to a stranger, and an empty envelope that is stamped and self addressed. You get an anonymous letter from someone else sent back to you. Their favorites are also put online for everyone to read.