Postcard above: Image by photographer, Mickey Smith and text by writer, John Lamb.

Abe's Penny is a micro-magazine which combines the brevity of the digital age with the charm of the 19th century. Two hundred years ago novels were mailed to readers in instalments. Abe's Penny, an art and literary journal on a postcard is mailed to readers four times a month. Each month's issue is a collaboration between writer and photographer, consisting of four instalments which build the narrative over the four weeks.

Founded by sisters Anna and Tess Knoebel, the idea was 'to make it so short, people wouldn't have a good reason not to read it'. The cards are beautiful, collectible items and each one is hand-addressed, stamped, and by the time it reaches you, it has acquired individual postmarks along the way. People have suggested that the sisters could bulk mail the postcards but that would lose the changing design of the stamp marking time and place.  When Abe's Penny started the Post Office in America sold tropical fruit postcard stamps; the current stamp design features herbs.

It sounds expensive for the Abe's Penny service but the postcards are very appealing pieces of specially commissioned literature matched to a striking image and mailed to your door with all the nostalgia of a bygone era.  Even better; the recipient can read the literature 'in the time it takes to walk from their mailbox to their front door'.

 

To subscribe for 12 months and receive 48 postcards is $82 in the US and $100 for international.  Although check out the website for offers for new subsribers; at the time of writing new subscribers could have a 3 month trial for $20 (US price).

 

Postcard on the left: image by Peter Bernard Killeen, a New Jersey based artist and words by Eric Ledgin who currently writes for Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.