The Millpond Post

Millpond isn't a real place. It's a town I'm building one chapter at a time on a workbench in Lake City, Michigan — and you've just taken up land there.

Twice a month a letter arrives with your name on it. Walter Reeves, writing to say your lot is entered in his book and there's an account open in your name. Your nearest neighbour, who counted the houses from her window and knew there was a new one before anybody thought to tell her. The schoolteacher, asking whether there are children at your place. The man who smelled smoke the night the store nearly burned, writing four badly spelled sentences under protest because somebody made him.

None of them is writing to entertain you. They all want something — or refuse to want anything — and that is what makes it feel like mail instead of a newsletter.

On the 1st you get a letter, and a small plan for something to build — a bench, a crate, a mailbox. Twenty minutes with a craft knife.

On the 15th you get the town's paperwork. A ledger page with your name entered below a man who has twice promised to settle on Tuesday. A handbill about credit that is secretly about how to treat people. A map of the landing with your lot marked on it. Alongside it, a page from Martha Pryce's daybook and the receipt for whatever she was cooking that month — real recipes, all of them, that work in a modern kitchen.

Twenty-four mailings across a year. The last one carries a ballot. Millpond has never actually had a name on paper — it has only ever been what people happened to call it — and when the town incorporates you get to vote on what it is really called. Whatever wins gets lettered onto the sign at the landing, on camera.

You don't need to have watched anything to read these. But if you have, you already know these people.

The particulars

• Twenty-four envelopes over twelve months, mailed on the 1st and the 15th.
• Postage is included. There is nothing else to pay.
• Your name goes into the letters and onto the map. Tell me at checkout how you want to be addressed — I use that, not the name on the card.
• Everyone starts at Mailing 1, whatever month they join. There is no back catalogue and nothing to catch up on.
• Plans run three, six or twelve months. Billing falls on the 1st.
• Pause or cancel any time from your account. Anything already paid for still gets mailed.

Questions

When will it arrive?
First class, posted on the 1st and the 15th. Most US addresses see it inside a week.

Can I write back?
Yes. There is a return address on every envelope and somebody reads what comes in.

What is the build card?
A small plan for something a person in Millpond would actually own. Card stock, a craft knife, about twenty minutes. Twelve of them across the year.

I have moved. Now what?
Reply to any order email before the next mailing day and I will change it by hand.