For the Love of Postcards

Call me old-fashioned, but I do love a good postcard.

While most of the rest of the world has turned to texting and social media to update their friends when away from home, I still send physical postcards to my family when I’m away on holiday, even though the combined cost of postcard and stamp can be eyewateringly expensive these days. (Denmark, you win the prize for priciest postcard option on our recent family tour of France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark – but more about that trip later.)

I love receiving postcards too. Yes, that’s a hint, folks. (Honorable mentions for Jess Hiles for sending me a beautifully coloured one of a bunny rabbit, received yesterday, and my Auntie Thelma, who’s always sending lovely museum and art postcards. They don’t have to be from foreign parts!)

Despite the price, postcards have a particular advantage over social media posts: they don’t advertise your absence to the world. I’d love to post photos online as I travel (not least because I know I’ll never get round to uploading all of them on my return), but I can’t help feeling I might as well add a caption saying “Debbie’s not at home right now – burglars welcome!”

Small is Beautiful…

In any case, I have a penchant for small works of art. I love postage stamps too, and pin badges and bookmarks (my favourite travel souvenirs) – so being sent a copy of Penny Guisinger’s Postcards from Here to read and review for Vine Leaves Literary Journal was a real treat. (“Here” happens to be a rural community in Maine, New England, in this case.)

…as in the Vignette

In case you’ve not come across it yet, Vine Leaves Literary Journal celebrates an ancient literary form known as the vignette – so-called because it is a piece of writing short enough to fit on a vine leaf. It’s published from Athens, Greece to a global audience by Australian author/poet/singer/songwriter Jessica Bell and author/screenwriter Dawn Ius. Each issue provides an anthology of the best vignette writing from around the world, gorgeously illustrated with atmospheric photography and artwork.

Vine Leaves also awards annual prizes for single-author vignette collections. As editor of Vine Leaves‘ book review blog (known as Sampling the Wine – what’s not to love about that?!)  I have the fun of reviewing them.

Here’s Cheers

To read my reviews of the single-author collections and of other books by contributors to Vine Leaves, hop over to the Sampling the Wine blog – and while you’re there, you might like to take a look around the rest of the site to see if you too can acquire the taste for this ancient but enjoyable form of words.

FLASH FICTION FOR FREE

You can also sample my own short-form fiction for free if you join my mailing list. Just click here to sign up, and you’ll be sent a link to download a free copy of my flash fiction collection, Quick Change.

For more thoughts about book reviews, visit my Reading and Reviewing page.