The Story Behind Arrow Letters
When I was a young girl growing up in South Africa, I had pen pals all over the country. We would write to each other regularly, sending letters back and forth through the post. I can still remember the excitement of waiting for the postman to arrive. I would stalk the postbox, constantly checking to see whether there was a letter waiting for me. There was something so exciting about that little moment of anticipation—the possibility that something had arrived just for me. Something I could hold in my hands, open slowly, read, and perhaps read again. I loved receiving letters.
But as I grew older, that began to change. The South African postal service deteriorated and eventually went bankrupt. Letters became increasingly unreliable and would simply disappear in the mail. There was always the worry that if an envelope looked as though it might contain money, someone along the way might take it. Sending something by registered mail became incredibly expensive, and as the postal system changed and services became increasingly privatized, sending a simple letter could cost an astronomical amount. Somewhere along the way, I stopped writing letters. I never stopped loving them.
Then I moved to America. When I arrived in the United States at the end of February, one of the first things I noticed was the postal service. It sounds like such a small thing, but I was fascinated. The post offices reminded me of what the postal service in South Africa used to feel like. They even have their own postal cars driving around delivering mail, which I found ridiculously cute! And, perhaps most importantly, letters actually get delivered. The simple act of sending something through the mail suddenly felt possible again.
Then I remembered something I had seen on Instagram. For years, I had watched creative people start mail clubs—writing poems, essays, illustrations, reflections and little pieces of correspondence and sending them directly to subscribers. I had wanted to subscribe to one for the longest time. There was one particular person I remember wanting to subscribe to because she wrote a poem every month and sent it through the mail. But I knew that if I paid for something to be sent to my mailbox in South Africa, there was a very real possibility that I would never receive it. Now I was in America. I could subscribe! So, excitedly, I went searching for her, but I couldn’t find her. Instead, I stumbled across other creative accounts doing similar things, and I began to realize that snail mail is becoming a thing again. People are craving tangible things. They want something that isn’t another notification, another email or another piece of content disappearing into a social media feed. They want something they can hold.
And I thought: Why don’t I start one of my own?
I’m in the United States now. Sending mail is affordable, it can actually arrive safely, and I have so many things I want to write. Perhaps this is the moment to create the kind of mail club I always wished I could subscribe to. And that is how Arrow Letters began.
Arrow Letters is my invitation to return to something wonderfully simple: words on paper, arriving in your mailbox. Every month, I want to write columns, essays and prophetic reflections and send them directly to the people who have chosen to receive them. No waiting for a publisher to accept the piece. No waiting for a magazine to commission it. No waiting for a newspaper to decide whether there is room for it. No algorithms deciding who sees it. Just me, writing—and you, receiving it. There is an enormous amount of creative freedom in that.
And it means something deeply personal to me. For so many years, I’ve dreamed of having a steady income from writing. Not simply making money around writing, but actually being able to make a living from the words themselves. Right now, creating Arrow Letters involves much more than writing. I’m designing everything, doing the graphic design, filming and editing videos, managing the administration, handling finances, marketing, public relations, printing, folding, packaging—and, of course, writing. I don’t mind doing those things, and I’ve learned so much from doing them, but my dream is that Arrow Letters will eventually become sustainable enough that I can pay other people to help with those parts and spend more of my time doing what I most want to do: write.
And there are so many things I want to write. Perhaps, one day, Arrow Letters will include a short-story mail club, a devotional mail club, a poetry mail club, special collections, little books, essays and other pieces of writing that I haven’t even imagined yet. I have years’ worth of ideas inside me. And if Arrow Letters can become a steady creative income, it could eventually give me the freedom to self-publish my books, too—because instead of beginning with no audience, I will already have a community of readers who have been walking with me. That possibility makes me incredibly excited.
So I’m asking you to come along. Right now, Arrow Letters has around 150 subscribers. My prayer and hope is that we will grow from 150 to 300 subscribers, then 500, and eventually 1,000 subscribers before the end of 2026. I know that 1,000 people might sound like a lot, but I also know that every community begins with one person. Every subscription matters. Every letter sent matters. Every person who shares Arrow Letters with a friend matters. Every person who reads something I’ve written and decides to come back next month matters.
You aren’t simply buying a letter. You’re helping create the possibility of a writing life. You’re helping make room for stories, essays, poems, reflections and ideas that might otherwise remain sitting inside my notebooks. And perhaps, in the process, we can rediscover something together that I loved as a little girl: the joy of waiting for the postman, the anticipation of seeing something in the mailbox, the feeling of opening an envelope, and the knowledge that someone, somewhere, took the time to write something—and send it to you.
That is what I want Arrow Letters to be. A little slower. A little more tangible. A little more thoughtful. A place where words, art and storytelling come together to encourage, inspire and remind us to notice the beauty, mystery and wonder woven into ordinary life.
The name Arrow Letters comes from the belief that words have power. Like an arrow released from a bow, the right words can travel far. They can pierce the heart, bring hope, spark curiosity and stay with us long after they have been read. And now, after years of longing to send and receive letters again, I finally can.
So please subscribe. If you’ve been wondering whether your subscription really makes a difference, it does. Every little bit helps. Every subscriber brings Arrow Letters one step closer to becoming the writing life I have dreamed about for so many years. Thank you for believing in this little idea. Thank you for reading. Thank you for sharing it. And thank you for being here at the beginning.
Welcome to Arrow Letters.
Let’s send words that leave a mark.