You’ve got mail

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 30/11/2020 (2150 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Madeleine Roger is going to make a mess of her dining room table. And she couldn’t be more excited.

“It’ll basically just be me with a million craft supplies and scissors and glue and a s–t-eating grin on my face,” says the Winnipeg singer-songwriter over the phone.

Roger, 29, has embarked on a new project called Letters from Madeleine, which will see her mailing handwritten notes, poems, original artwork and musical surprises to subscribers every month until May (although she’s keen to continue sending snail mail if the experiment proves successful).

“I love writing letters,” she says. “And I wanted to find a way to share my music with people and share some of the thoughts that I’ve been having over all of these months of isolation, but without having to take to social media to do it.”

Roger — who co-produced her debut album, Cottonwood, with her father, Lloyd Peterson — got into the habit of sending postcards and letters to friends back home while on tour.

“You often get something wonderful in the mail from whoever you’ve written to,” she says. “Which I think is such a wonderful, wonderful way to open your mailbox — it’s so much more exciting than getting another bill or a bank statement.”

She encourages subscribers to write back and admits the project might be a bit selfish because of how much she’s going to enjoy making the packages and finding some new pen pals.

“Maybe it’s self-serving,” the folk artist says with a laugh. “But I’m honestly so excited about this because I feel like it lets me dabble in all of the things that I love to do.”

While she has multiple craft zones in her St. James home, the dining room table is where she’s been doing most of her creative work lately. Roger is about to dive into her December mailing list, which will receive a mix of musings, an inspiring quote and a piece of art made from her large stock of paper, pressed flowers, yarn, clay, string and stickers — all of which is stored in a giant travel chest from the 1920s that accompanied her family on their journey from Germany to Canada.

She also plans on sending out merch that she would normally sell on tour and a link to a secret page on her website, where she’ll post music videos and demos of new songs.

Subscribers who sign up before Dec. 1 will receive six months of mail and those who join later will get their first package the following month for the remainder of the project. Subscription fees are on a sliding pay-what-you-can scale that ranges from $2 to $50 a month.

“My hope is that people who are able to afford a little bit more could sort of help to offset the cost for the folks who didn’t have as much to spare right now,” Roger says. “I (also) don’t want to be part of this idea that art is only a commodity.”

She’s had a “good number” of people sign up so far and some have purchased subscriptions as gifts for others. Depending on the uptake, Roger says she might have to cap the number of subscribers in order to keep up with demand.

Letters from Madeleine was born out of a daydream and a desire to connect with others offline during the pandemic. Even though she’s not a big social media user, Roger has found herself gravitating to the internet to keep up with friends and family. She believes good old-fashioned mail can be a balm to doomscrolling and Zoom calling, especially during the winter.

“(As) Canadians, we’re so acutely aware of how long and isolating the winters can be already,” Roger says. “My hope is that it can just help to bring a little bit of a lift every month and feel a bit more like there’s a human on the other end of it and not just algorithms.”

Visit madeleineroger.com/letters to learn more and sign up for a subscription.

eva.wasney@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @evawasney