San Francisco, California
October 24, 2000

Dear Readers,

Today’s letter is from Heather O’Neill, in Montreal. We published Heather’s first letter, about teaching poetry to her daughter’s sixth-grade class, back in July, and it’s stuck with me ever since: There’s something dream-like about the way it unravels that seems entirely implausible and entirely true at the same time. You should read it if you haven’t already.

When we published that letter we also ran an editor’s letter by Jonathan Goldstein about the first time he met Heather; that will give you some O’Neill biography. As will today’s letter. One other note about Heather, which I neglected to mention last time: she is the author of this bookof poetry, which is difficult, but not impossible, to track down.

If you notice a newer, zippier look to the site today, it’s because yesterday we received a fresh shipment of illustrations from Craig Taylor, Open Letters’ original designer, now resident in London, England. Craig, always acutely sensitive to his environment, has turned his artistic attentions to such British-themed subjects as Big Ben, a Wispa chocolate bar, and the inner ear, as you can see here:

Also: as I mentioned in yesterday’s editor’s letter, this week marks the conclusion of volume two of Open Letters, which means that after this Sunday’s PDF weekly goes out to subscribers, we’ll be going on our traditional inter-volume hiatus. Not for quite as long this time; probably just a week.

So that means that next week we’ll be in reruns; the web site will feature a different letter each day from our archives. Any nominations for forgotten gems from our past? Letters that you’d like other readers to be reminded of? Ones that have stuck with you the way Heather’s first letter stuck with me? Please send your suggestions toeditor@openletters.net.

Yours truly,

Paul Tough