To: scocca@gawker.com

Damn. Eighty-one-year-old Tony Trapani just met his son for the first time this week in Grand Rapids, Mich. He only just discovered he even had a son after cleaning out a filing cabinet left behind by his late wife, whom he claims hid the letter from him for more than 50 years.

Email may be impersonal, email may be unromantic, but at least email isn't flammable. Unfortunately for hundreds of thousands of Orange County letter-writers, paper is.

A Thanksgiving spent away from the internet is NOT an excuse to miss out on Thought Catalog's holiday bounty—of love.

A massive infographic formulated from an array of handwriting studies claims to show that over 5,000 personality traits are reflected by the words we write onto paper. Too bad we don't do that anymore, too bad the study of handwriting (graphology) is disregarded in most circles as probably bullshit, and too bad that this study still analyzes cursive.

Rudyard Kipling signed his letters very sincerely, but he was not sincere. In his own Just So story of how his books came to be, the author of The Jungle Book and Kim cagily admits to plagiarism.

When a jailed member of the controversial Russian punk band Pussy Riot decided to go on hunger strike to protest her incarceration proceedings, Sir Paul McCartney stepped in. He penned a hand-written letter to Russian authorities, demanding they release the two remaining jailed members of the wronged band.

Nine letters from J. D. Salinger, written between 1941 to 1943, reveal the elusive Catcher in the Rye author's book recommendations, writerly ambitions to "tear the country’s heart out," fears that he would "probably fail completely," and his clumsy attempts to flirt via correspondence. All in all, he's got an awkwardly charming resemblance to Holden Caulfield that you were hoping for.

A letter addressed to President Obama that was intercepted after a "suspicious substance" was detected has tested positive for ricin, the same substance found on a letter to Mississippi Senator Roger Wicker yesterday, the Dow Jones news wire is reporting.

Nashville resident Kylee Francescan made a grisly discovery recently while disposing of some newspapers in a recycling dumpster behind an elementary school: hundreds of letters, "covered with pictures, hearts, and sparkles" addressed to Taylor Swift.

In 1999, when I was 19 years old, I was arrested and charged with first degree murder, several counts of attempted murder, attempted robbery, and several counts of criminal use of a weapon. I was convicted of first degree assault and third degree weapons possession, and was sentenced to 12 years in prison in 2002.

On this, the final day of 2012, allow us to draw your attention to what is—if memory serves—the most obnoxious letter to the editor of the New York Times Book Review of the entire year, conveniently published in yesterday's edition.

This is the first installment of New Year's Absolutions, an exercise in unburdening guilt before 2013.

From crime to AIDS to the debt, America is facing a lot of problems. But there's a simple solution, according to this letter: cast this woman in a movie with Leonardo DiCaprio. Not only will "less [sic] children... be harmed by confused followers of Leonardo DiCaprio," but Los Angeles might get the Olympics again.

This brutal, heartbreaking love letter was found in 1998, lying on the mummified body of Eung-Tae Lee, a 30-year-old Korean man who'd died in 1586, some four hundred years before. Lee was tall and bearded — "The dark mustache made me feel that he must have had a charming appearance," says the former director of the Andong National University Museum — and left behind him a pregnant wife, the letter's author. Here it is, via Letters of Note:

In 2007, the New Yorker published staff writer Raffi Khatchadourian's lengthy and nuanced profile of "American Al Qaeda" Adam Gadahn, the California-born death metal enthusiast who converted to Islam, moved to Pakistan, and rose to the leadership of Al Qaeda. What the magazine has never reported: Gadahn wrote back.

Earlier this year, I wrote to every American death row inmate scheduled for execution in the near future. I asked them about their personal history, their lives in prison, and their thoughts on America and its justice system. Today we hear from Abdul Awkal—a man who was scheduled to be executed by the state of Ohio last week, before receiving a last-minute reprieve.

Sometimes, if we are lucky, readers and interested parties use our Tips email address to send us "tips." If we are lucky, they can lead to great stories. If we are really lucky, they are more like what follows.

A few weeks ago, I sent letters to every American death row inmate scheduled for execution this year. I asked them about their own survival prospects, their day-to-day lives, and their thoughts on America, its media, and its justice system. Today, a death row inmate replies.

Bloomberg LP is an incredibly successful media company. It is famous for tight security, tyrannical, controlling editors, plush offices which act like a luxurious cage to ensure that employees never leave the building. It's a place built to engender paranoia. That's probably why employees feel the need to write their tips to us on company stationery, and mail them to us.