Exciting Envelopes

by Raelene Gorlinsky

Almost all our communication here at EC is done via email. About the only thing for which we still use paper and the postal system is author contracts (and we're working on automating them as an electronic process). So each week I get stacks of envelopes from our authors all over the world, with the contracts for their latest accepted books. Hey, that's well over 500 a year! Dealing with all this paper is a bit tedious, but a few things can enliven the daily mail processing.

One author regularly sends a cartoon with each contract. Another sends me a note on the loveliest paper. I always enjoy these little touches. Too bad chocolate would likely not survive the mail well.

If the envelope is from outside the U.S. and has interesting stamps on it, it goes to Kelli after I've extracted the contents. She's a fantastic collage creator, and is considering doing one of foreign stamps.

There are some envelopes we fight over. The unique ones. We have a couple of authors who enliven the backs of their envelopes with drawings. One author is in Australia, and doodles pictures of kangaroos and such on her envelopes. Kelli claims she should get all these, because she is this author's editor. But I did manage to hang onto one cute kanga-doodle. (Thank you, Lexxie.)

And then there's Sidney, who draws and colors cartoon panels. Lots of space on a 9" by 12" envelope, you know. The latest came this week, it's the Epic Adventures of Awesome. The heroine is married to her best friend, the Pink Poodle. Alas, the final panel is "To be continued...". Hey, Sidney, send me more! I need entertainment when dealing with all these envelopes.