Los Angeles, California
July 17, 2000

Dear Readers,

Today’s letter is by Emily White, a contributing editor of Open Letters who lives in Seattle, Washington. These aren’t the first words she’s written for Open Letters; she also wrote an editor’s letter, back in June, about Samantha Shapiro, our Jerusalem correspondent. But it’s her first contribution about her own life.

These aren’t the first words I’ve written about Emily, either: in June I wrote a letter about her, and about what it was like to read The Stranger, a Seattle weekly, back when she was the editor. The book she mentions in her letter, the one that she just finished, is called Fast Girls; it’s a reported book about girls who are, and women who were, “sluts” in high school. I haven’t read it yet – it’s still a few months from publication – but I wish I could buy stock in it.

I’ve been thinking for a while about publishing an entire week of letters that are somehow connected; Emily’s lettermarks a first step in that direction: Each letter this week is by one of the editors of Open Letters, an eclectic group spread around North America. This week’s letters aren’t thematically linked: they’re about mania, Eminem, sex-change operations, writer’s block, and the search for the perfect joke. Next week, though, will have a distinct theme: all of the letters, and the weekend conversation, will be about life at work.

I don’t think we’ll be doing these theme weeks all the time. But the next two weeks will give us, and you, a chance to see what they’re like. Drop me a line, ateditor@openletters.net, if you have any comments along the way.

Yesterday, the fourth issue of the weekly PDF magazine went out to our subscribers; if you’re new to Open Letters, and would like to know why we think you should subscribe (for free) to the weekly, please take a look here; to subscribe, visit this page, or just send a blank email to weekly@openletters.net.

As always, thanks for reading.

Yours truly,

Paul Tough