I learned how to read when I was two years old. Maybe this was the first indicator that I’d find comfort in words all my life. Though I have an English degree, I’m still a beginner; I see the truth in a fresh light with every new story (and with every re-read of an old one). The words of O’Connor, Dillard, Buechner, Thoreau, Von Balthasar, and Rilke (among many others) haunt me; they bid me to also share my writing, to attempt to write a poem that, as Dickson says, makes you feel physically as if the top of your head were taken off.

My seed-like words press up to the surface and often fall short, but I continue to create. I find solace in the words of Madeleine L’Engle: “In a very real sense not one of us is qualified, but it seems that God continually chooses the most unqualified to do his work, to bear his glory.”

My desire with this snail mail club is to give away what I’ve learned, to provide you with tools to make it easy to choose creativity over consumption, and to build a community of artists who are ready to see, speak, and live fully again.

People are worried AI is going to take the jobs of artists, and maybe it will. But no one can steal the joy of creating from us. That’s why I’m here—for the love of the game (and to reclaim the em-dash). Don’t underestimate the power of your words. In the beginning, God created the world with speech, and I doubt that’s a coincidence. If we are made in the image of a creative God whose Son is called the Living Word, then we too have both the ability and duty to create. An AI engine cannot give you the satisfaction of having toiled to create something true, good, and beautiful.

If you want to join me in this countercultural act of creating, it would be an honor to have you.

-Mary Grace Curran