Welcome!

[Jenna]

Welcome everyone,

We decided to set up this forum to provide an opportunity for readers of "Can Any Mother Help Me?" and correspondence magazine writers to have a place for discussing the book and anything to do with correspondence magazines in general.

This is just a jumping off point, so please feel free to discuss anything that comes to mind! (writing in general, motherhood, friendship, social history, etc)

Thanks very much,

Jenna

[Reader]

Hey,

could you explain what a correspondence magazine is?

Cheers!

[Jenna]

Hi Reader!

A Correspondence Magazine is a private magazine.  There are a few variations, but in general they function exactly as the Cooperative Correspondence Club magazine did (the one that is written about in Can Any Mother Help Me?).

The way it works is that each member of the magazine writes an article for each edition.  The article can be on any topic.  The contributor mails it to the editor who then compiles all the articles and binds them together.  In the case of the CCC, the editor put them together in a hand-stitched linen cover.  After the magazine was assembled, the editor would mail it to the first member of the group, who had time to read it and write comments directly on the pages.   After they had finished, they would mail it to the next member, and so on and so forth, until every person in the group had a chance to read the magazine. 

There are hundreds of correspondence magazines in the UK and probably around the world as well.   There are still many that are currently running but the CCC folded in 1990 after 54 years!!

Thanks for your question! J