Introducing “Letters from Earthling”

My new epistolary series in The New York Times

Friends,

The radio is very intent on playing adventurous Piero Piccioni scores today. Behind the echoes of soft xylophone, the shrill whiny whine of construction. Thick, silent clouds pack the sky. 

A still, bright city. From this place I write to you. 

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Oh goodness, we are writing a series.

A few months ago, when my art director suggested the idea of doing a series, I wasn’t sure what I would write about. I was so nervous and so excited at the same time, which for me is actually a (buzzing neon thumbs-up) sign to move towards the challenge.

Letter #1 in the “Letters from Earthling” series begins with a mini comic

The letter is a medium I grew up with and adore, and I knew that it would be a trusted partner for a written series. I love exchanging letters so much that if the clouds parted and a thundering god roared, “your favorite chestnut cake or letter writing, you must choose one and only one,” I would tearfully part with my beloved Mont Blanc slice and pick up my pen.

But this loving god laughed and said, “I do not work in binaries!” and floated a plate of cake my way. (Thank god 😭)

One of my favorite desserts, the Mont Blanc, a chestnut cream cake with whipped cream <3

As you have likely gauged from the title, "Letters from Earthling" is a monthly letter from Earthling, written to their Friend who is an amigo from a different galaxy. 

With so much happening in our time, I wanted to create a creative container that would allow me to write about… everything. The climate crisis, the magic of peaches, the kindness of humans, the pandemic, all of it.

But as this column is in the Sunday Arts & Leisure section, the letters will be anchored in art, which is thankfully the Most Abundant Topic Ever. 

The first letter is about creating beauty in a time of war.

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Lovely to meet you, characters from my imagination

The spirit of Earthling had been strolling across the back of my head for a while, but—as my whip-smart sweetie and first reader noted wisely—I had never given my characters a place to call home or a hat to wear. 👒

Developing Earthling, from B&W sketch to inked final version

So for the past few months, I was figuring out who Earthling and Friend are and how they wanted to appear, speak, and carry themselves in this series. As a storyteller of personal experiences, daring to dream up a world, a history, an identity for these characters in my imagination was quite the challenge. 

But after some encouraging slaps on the back from writer friends and freeing myself to have fun with world building, here we are. We have pushed off the dock now, and the Earthling odyssey has begun. I hope you will follow along. 

P.S. for folks who can’t access the piece on the Times site, I’ll be sure to post it on my website a few days after each Earthling letter goes live. 

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Soul spark ✨

What’s been inspiring me lately

Here is the piece of music Earthling mentions in Letter #1. It was at the beginning of World War I that Ralph Vaughan Williams wrote “The Lark Ascending,” which was in fact inspired by a poem of the same name by George Meredith.

We are the fountain of hope we dream of,

Haruka