I think the shock is starting wear off.....only to be immediately replaced by insane giddiness.....

( The Letter itself, in all its handwritten glory! )

Wow.

Thanks in no small part to the efforts of Liane, The Letter Box has earned a response after all of this time. The original was delivered to Liane, as she was the one who inquired at Bloomsbury, but she was kind enough to transcribe the text for me, which read as follows:


Dear International Association of Potter Fans,

What can I say? Rarely do I receive such letters, and never before in one beautifully packaged collection..

I apologize most sincerely for the long wait for a response. You congratulated me on his birth - and no, he's not a Squib - but David is indeed the main reason that i am horrendously behind on my correspondence.  Well - David and book 6 which (before the press start up again with the writer's block stories) is flowing like a mountain stream.

With many many thanks for sending me such a treat I am
 
Yours most sincerely
 
(signed) JKRowling
 
(Jo)


Liane is going to send me a copy and hopefully a scan of the letter, which I will post for all to see as soon as humanly possible.

Thank you all again so much for helping to make this project a reality. I suppose I'm just sort of floored that, nearly a year later, it's finally come to an end ^_^

--ali

So I am a fool who was apparently too timid with my persuit of news about The Box. I wrote Bloomsbury countless times and never got a reply, and was ultimately too much of a wimp (and too broke) to make the call and harass them via phone.

But dear, DEAR Liane --- who is far smarter than me -- took it upon herself to do what needed to be done!

Her comment:

"This is so exciting. I had a call today from J K Rowlings Edinburgh office. As you know JK has been on maternity leave. She also hasn't been doing anything about fan mail while she has been on leave so it is well stacked up. The lady I spoke to asked if THE BOX had been been posted from New York by Ali and I said yes and she said IT IS THERE. YES. howevere the down side is it may take JK a year to get to it. However THE BOX has got to where it should be and will eventually be read. I have taken a liberty however I asked for confirmation to be sent to me rather than Ali as I am not sure where she is and I wouldn't want the confirmation to come through and nobody realise because Ali isn't around. I hope this is ok with everyone. so maybe by next christmas we will have our christmas wish of a reply. I am just so happy that it is there. Forgive me I am babbling. YIPEEEEEEEEEEE"

Liane? If you're reading this? You ROCK. Drop me a line at ali_wildgoose@yahoo.com if you get a chance, eh? ^_-

Incidentally, I am still around, though I've admittedly not been checking the letter box email account lately. I was so disheartened by how much time passed without word that it was too depressing to troll through emails. BUT, I will be good and start checking the account again. And if I hear anything else, I'll make sure to pass it on through this journal!

Satus: Delivered
Delivered: April 24, 2003 11:45AM
Signed by: Fitzgerald
Location: Front Desk
Delivered to: London, GB
Shipped or Billed on: April 22, 2003
Weight: 12.00 Lbs

...

So...it's there. Just a matter of waiting, now, I suppose. :}

And while I'm posting...two things:

Last call for people whose names were accidentally left off the list. If you sent a letter to me but were not included in this list:

http://www.diagon.org/letterbox/letterbox_list.html

Please email me at the_letter_box@yahoo.com with a description of your letter, your first name, your age, and what State/Country you're from. I want to get a complete list put together so I give people the final letter count. :)

Also, Many MANY thanks to Rachel, Katherine, Mary Ann, Abbie and Sandra for their generosity in helping me with shipping costs. You guys really made my day!!

To everyone who's offered to help out financially with the cost of shipping -- I would, of course, appriciate any help you all could give me. While I knew going in that this would be costly, and while it was definately worth it to me in the end, I'm still a recent college graduate with a very small paycheck. *looks sheepish* So while I'll be all right as it is, if you DO want to send a small donation, I would certainly be thankful.

My PO Box address is still:

Ali Wildgoose
61 East 8th Street, Box 172
New York, NY 10003

To everyone who helped out on Copy Day -- could you all drop me an email at the_letter_box@yahoo.com ? I'm having trouble tracking down email addresses for some reason. ^_^

plain wooden box - free
materials to decorate wooden box - $40
four hundred fan letters to JKR - free
bubble wrap and carboard box to ship it all in - $12
postage to England - $206.74
knowing that The Letter Box is out of my hands - priceless

Here's to hoping, eh? :)

Many many many thanks to akickinthehead for doing this...

http://home.nyu.edu/~dwl207/letterbox/index2.html

I'm so close to sending this I can TASTE it!! :D

It seems like a lot of you are itching for other adult Potter fans to chat with, judging by some of the comments I've seen.

If what you're looking for is a large, moderated discussion group, you should definately take a look at:

Harry Potter for Grown Ups
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownUps/

It's one of the oldest and largest discussion groups in the HP fandom...and while it's a little slow right now, once Book 5 comes out I'm sure it'll be a great place to talk about your theories and observations with other adult fans. Good stuff! :)

There are a lot of groups for older HP fans out there...many of them are on Yahoo. You'd be amazed what you can find if you poke around a little. (Though be aware that not all HP sites are rated G)

I think I spent something like 6 or 7 hours yesterday sorting and folding letters. The pain in my back and the fact that I watched three movies in the background tells me so. *grins* Still not done, but definately getting close.

Many apologies to those whose names were left off the first draft of the list. I'm stil hunting down stragglers, so if you don't see your name and know your letter should have gotten to me on time, let me know! I haven't had any LETTERS go missing, it's just that a few were apparently overlooked when the list was typed up. :)

The list! It is done!

http://www.diagon.org/letterbox/letterbox_list.html

This is everyone whose letter I have in my hands right now. I will update it if I find any strays, but pretty much...that's it!

397 people....34 countries....

not bad.... not bad at all.... ;)

*goes back to letterboxin*

First off, for those of you who don't feel like trolling through old comments, you can find photos of the Letterbox Archival Effort (better known as "Copy Day" :) here and here. Many thanks to akickinthehead and vlamidala for their documentarian efforts. ^_^

As for the Box itself....I really wish I could show you the WIP pics Derek took today, but I feel like I should wait until I'm done so you can see it finished. Will be so cool! If THIS doesn't attract at least a little attention, I don't know what will!

Again, many many MANY thanks to everyone who's dedicated their time, attention and finances to this project! It's been a lot of work, but of course, it's also been a lot of fun.

Though at this point, I really just want to mail the damn thing ^_-

So Copy Day, despite the rain the cold and the crazy guy who kept shushing us in Kinkos, was a total sucess. Not to mention really fun. lightstarangel (Shar), smilie117 (Sabrina), vlamidala (Lauren), Danya, limbomonkey (Emily), Onika, nutnatz (Natasha), Joanna, akickinthehead (Derek) and Sandra all teamed up to get a very large stack of letters copied and organized. And to my complete astonishment, Sandra and Lauren actually OFFERED to type up the list of names, ages and locations of everyone who's sent letters in so far. It was amazing! We got the whole thing done in a little over two hours, which was much faster than I ever would have expected.

THEN (although, sadly, Sandra had to leave us <:/ ) we all trouped down to chinatown for lunch, annoyed all the waitresses, and made more noise than 10 people ought to be able to. And of course, we had to make our "Congrats on the baby!" card for JKR, which involved milling around Pearl Paint for supplied, then taking over a Sabarro's for an hour or so of arts and crafts. Joanna, lovely graphic design misstress that she is, did cutting and pasting and lettering; me, Sabs and Emily beaded like crazy monkeys. Of course, many photos were taken, and will be posted shortly. The short of it: The Letterbox Archival Effort was a blast. ^_^

A note to everyone coming to Copy Day on Sunday:

I'll be getting there fairly early, so the best thing would probably be to just look for me. I will be easy to find, trust me. I'll be wearing my Gryffindor-colored shirt if it's warm - my Gryff scarf if it's cold, however unlikely that may be - and I will have a very large pile of letters in front of me. ^_-

For everyone who sent letters:

Many of you have been asking if your letters arrived or not. Alas, I have not had time to sit down and paw through everything. But sometime today or tomorrow I wil probably sit down and make a list of everyone who participated, which I'll then post online. Don't worry, the only info I'll include is first name, age, State (if applicable,) and country. :)

Today is March 25th. Officially, the Letter Box Project is coming to a close. While I've decided to give it another few days while I wait for the stragglers to come in, if you haven't sent your letter by the end of today then it's probably too late. Alas! If only this could go on forever, eh?

But then the Box would never get sent! :)

I won't be posting any more letter counts until the final one, as the rush of last-minute additions has overwhelmed me a bit; and I think surprises are more fun, anyway. But I will say that the diversity of these letters is astounding. Fans from every corner of the globe - and from every pocket of the fandom - have joined together for the sake of this project, and the results have been truly heartwarming.

Thank you all, so very very much, for participating in this. It seems oddly appropriate, as the release date for Book Five creeps ever closer, that we come together to thank JKR for all she's given us. Because, at the end of the day, that's kind of what this is: a thank you. A way of letting her know that we, the slightly older fans, appriciate her efforts.

I don't know what will happen when these letters reach England. But I do know this: You lot are completely amazing. I just hope that JKR sees that, too. ^_^

Envelope count as of this morning: 274

I've decided that while I'm not going to change the official deadline, I will hold off on sending out The Box until the letters stop coming in. Unless it starts getting ridiculous, I'll wait until at least a day has gone by without any mail. Which, believe it or not, hasn't happened since I started this thing. Craaaazzzy. :D

It's more like week 2 1/2, but still...

( Damn, that pile's getting big... )

Envelope count: 200

Though I'm really not sure what the actual LETTER count is, as several of those envelopes had more than one. Needless to say, I am totally thrilled. Passing the 200 mark is something I hadn't necessarily thought we'd manage; now that it's been reached, I've let my hopes get the better of me. Much excitement has resulted, as I am a huge dork.

EEEEE!!

*coughs*

Excuse me ^_^

And btw, I've taken another picture, but the cable that connectes the camera to my computer seems to have gone missing. My public display of intense goofiness willl have to wait a bit longer. ;)

This is the final plan. If any changes get made, I'll edit this post, so check back if you're worried about last-minute alterations. ^_^

What: Making photocopies of all the letters that have been sent in for the Letter Box project (for the sake of being archival. Note that I'm not planning to post them anywhere, I just feel safer having backup copies before I send everything out.)

Who: Whoever wants to come!

Where: The Kinko's on Astor Place, between Broadway and Lafayette

When: Sunday, March 30th, at noon.

How to get there: Take the 6 train to Astor Place or the N to 8th street.

Letter count: 158

Exotic origin of the day: Bombay, India

To everyone who wanted to join in on the Great Day of Copying: I was thinking that Saturday, the 29th of March would be good, at the Kinko's on Astor Place (it's right near the Astor Place station on the 6) which is open 24/7. Sound good? ^_^

The other day, as I sat looking at a letter that was written on beautifully watercolored stationary, it occured to me that some sort of record should be kept of this project. A few of you have suggested the same thing, and I totally agree - whatever the eventual use may be, copies of everything sent ahould be kept for safe keeping.

However, this is sort of a heavy-duty project to embark upon.

So I was wondering...a few of you have already offered to lend a hand. How many of you live close to or in NYC and would like to sit down for a Letter Box day around the end of the month? And if you would like to join in, where do you think we should do it? I sort of think a Kinkos or Unique Copy or what some such would be an ideal spot....copies aren't THAT expensive, after all....

Thoughts?

(a side note to everyone who's sent a letter - I would never, EVER reproduce your work for public consumption without your permission. No worries ^_^)