Letter Writing Prompt - Open Letters

Each month we share a letter writing prompt to encourage you to put pen to paper more often.

A little suggestion of what you could write about, to get your creative juices flowing, and allow you to enjoy a relaxing mindful moment of writing.

How quickly we’ve arrived in August! It almost feels as if the summer is in fast forward mode – the days and weeks passing so quickly, no thanks to the subtropical weather we’ve been having. Here’s hoping August brings us a month of calmer weather, and a little more relaxation.

This month, we’ve been looking into the history of open letters – how they’ve affected politics and created movements of change. Open Letters are letters written to an individual or group of people, but intended for publication in a newspaper or journal. They can address a motive or reasoning by articulating each point intended to be put across, and be used to access a wide audience of people that it would otherwise be difficult to reach. We’ve seen some examples in recent weeks, after the BBC news presenter scandal, but also throughout history during wars, climate change, draughts and all manner of historical moments.

And so, embracing our prompt, I encourage you to write your own open letter. Why not use this as an opportunity to start a movement of your own? You could write to your local MP, or even to parliament, or perhaps your local council, or school, leisure centre, park management, anywhere you feel change could be made, and use your words to start up a conversation. Perhaps you have a local newspaper, or a village news board, where you could forward a copy of your letter onto, and see if you can rally up support? 

Wishing you a month of powerful letter writing!