POST
POST (zines + things) is an epistolary collection of postcards written by Alissa Hattman during the American Short Fiction Constellation Challenge. This was a month-long writing experiment that took place in November 2020. In the collection, Alissa explores distance from loved ones, spaces, and objects with intense depth and nuance. She offers poignant observations about our relationship to the passage of time, memories, and ideas.
“In our age of instant digital communication, physical mail—letters, postcards, zines, anything handwritten and heartfelt—feels like a precious gift. Assembled here in zine form, Alissa's postcards to absent people and places are a double gift—a small booklet of collected longings, memories, wishes, hopes and fears that captures the contours of this strange uncertain time with love and care. We are lucky to be the recipients of her missives, too.”
- Abby Bass, Arts & Literature Librarian, Seattle Public Library
“With its magnolia saplings, light switches, Daisy Dukes, railroad whistles, farm workers, fires, door knobs, peaks of whipped cream, and candlelit patios — Alissa Hattman’s POST is a small sea vessel carrying the watermark of people, places, and things lost, as it navigates the strange terrain of a pandemic year. Writing itself into being through thoughtful observation and skilful reflection, POST gives us permission to rest in our humanness, to feel again, and in short: to keep on going.”
- Brandi Katherine Herrera, author of MOTHER IS A BODY
“POST shows the alchemical process built into the postal mail: I sat at this scarred wooden desk and thought of you. I wrote it down. I put a stamp on one corner, and wrote your beloved name. Now it’s yours. POST is alchemy, poetry, and the capacity to forge potent connection in small spaces. Postcards are an essential practice and as Hattman herself writes, “I think this might be one way to carry on.”
- Laura Moulton, founder of Street Books and author of Loaners
“We write to connect. We read to connect. And, in this pandemic, this time of loss and aloneness, this connection is crucial. Alissa Hattman deftly captures this in POST, a collection of playful and poignant postcards to friends, a bar, a desk, a future nephew, a governor, a janitor, and many more surprising humans and objects. POST has a skillful combination of humor, wisdom, grief, and heartbreak, but really, Hattman’s collection is an ode to life – it brims with gratitude, gratitude for people here and gone, places and things, gratitude for this planet. I am grateful for Alissa Hattman’s writing. I am grateful for this beautiful collection that makes me feel less alone.”
- Chrys Tobey, author of A Woman is a Woman is a Woman is a Woman