Dear City Letters Still Wanted for Upcoming Podcast

Back in July, we worked with a producer of National Public Radio's show State of the Re:Union to drum up support for their "Dear City" letters segment to help them find material for their upcoming show based in West Virginia. We thought it would be fun to do something similar for our podcast and, with their consent, are going to do so.

The Dear City Letters are basically what they sound like: people writing a letter TO their city. These can be written from a place of love, anger, humor and beyond, addressing the likes and dislikes or breaking misconceptions. As part of our collaboration, the WV Writers Podcast opened its voicemail hotline to listeners to phone in such letters. We forwarded those we received to State of the Re:Union and are planning to also use them for an upcoming podcast.

If you would like to participate with your own Dear City letter, please do so, for there is still time.

Here are your instructions:

• People can feel free to be as creative as they'd like... the only constraint is to keep it under 400 words.
• All the letters should start the same way with "Dear _____ [your town name here],” i.e. if you live in Parkersburg, you should start “Dear Parkersburg.”
• Also, remember to refer to your home in the second person (You). We want these to sound like you're speaking directly to your home.
• Once your letter is written, phone up the WV Writers Podcast voicemail hotline so we can record it. The number is 304-661-9745.
  
• When you call, you will have 2:45 sec to record your dear city letter. If your letter runs longer, feel free to call back and record the rest.
• If you mess up, just say 3…2… 1 and start where you left off; we can edit out the errors.