The Endangered Art of Letter-Writing

Each installment of The Friendship Files features a conversation between The Atlantic’s Julie Beck and two or more friends, exploring the history and significance of their relationship.

This week she talks with two women who met as strangers on a ferry. Their casual conversation turned into a summer spent together in Canada, and then into a 40-year pen-palship. They documented job changes, marriages, divorces, and life’s other ups and downs, staying committed to physical letters the whole time. They discuss what’s so special about the endangered art of letter-writing and how it’s sustained their friendship even though they rarely see each other in person.

The Friends:

Julie Fletcher, 62, a writer and editor who lives in Ottawa, Canada
Belinda Spofforth, 68, a psychotherapist who lives in Lee-on-the-Solent, England

This interview has been edited for length