San Francisco, California
September 8, 2000

Dear Readers,

Today’s letter is by Paul Maliszewski, a writer and teacher who is in the midst of (a) moving from Syracuse, New York, to Durham, North Carolina, and (b) writing about it, serially, for Open Letters. This is the first letter in a trilogy; Paul’s second letter, about driving a moving truck, will follow in a couple of weeks.

Tomorrow, Deirdre Dolan, the Oriana Fallaci of Open Letters, will present, if all goes well, an interview with her five-year-old niece about her niece’s first week of kindergarten, which concludes today. It will wrap up our post-Labor Day week of writing about starting up, starting over, and moving on, and will include thoughts on the importance of choosing the right first-day underwear; on rest time: the big lie; and on the wisdom of basing one’s pedagogical theories on episodes ofArthur.

Deirdre previously interviewed Sarah Jones, the most popular girl in sixth grade; and Invisibyl Ninja, a nineteen-year-old Earthlink tech-support guy.

And then on Sunday, our weekly subscribers will receive their free copy of the easy-to-read, easy-to-print PDF version of Open Letters. If you’d like to subscribe, please visit this page; if you’d like to read a little essay on why we think you should subscribe, please go to this page; if you’d like to download a sample copy of the PDF, please clickhere.

Yours truly,

Paul Tough