On Sunday, June 22, Port Hope’s Furby House Books will be immersed in the familiar soundtrack of taps, clicks, and dings as the independent bookstore is transported back in time to the age before spellcheck and delete keys.
As an early celebration for International Typewriter Day on June 23, Port Hope blogger Barb Brittain-Marshall will be hosting a drop-in typewriter social where the vintage machines will be set up and available for use.
“It’s a beautiful, magical little indie bookstore and you can come in and give a typewriter a try,” says Brittain-Marshall. “Maybe you’ll write a poem, maybe it’s a song, or maybe you just want to tap on them and have the experience while you browse the books.”
Brittain-Marshall is accustomed to using some of her more than 20 collected typewriters in public — which she says is a “guaranteed conversation starter” — and uses them to lead bridal showers, birthday parties, museum open houses, team building workshops, and other private events.
“It’s an immersive experience on a typewriter which so many of us — and a few generations — have never had,” she says.
Her passion for the machines began with a love of letter writing and stationery — spelled with an “e,” she points out (the incorrect spelling is a pet peeve of hers).
“I grew up a hoarder who loved papers, envelope, pencils, and pens, and I wrote a lot of letters and postcards as a kid,” she says. “I grew up with that all through adulthood. I grew up in the era — and I’m actually really grateful for it — where iPhones didn’t exist so, for example, when I was dating my husband, we actually wrote letters.”
But it was when she and her family moved to Calgary that letter writing became “a lifeline” as it allowed her to stay in touch with her family and friends back home. In 2013, she used the experience to launch a blog called Rite While U Can, where she continues to document her love for all things snail mail.
“I’ve always been a snail mail girl and what was more meaningful than ever in my life was receiving letters from my family and friends back in Ontario,” she recalls. “I was homesick, and just to go to my mailbox and open it up and there is an envelope with my mom’s handwriting on it, it helps to bring that person closer even though they’re far away.”
While she admits that since moving to Port Hope last year, she hasn’t been maintaining the blog as diligently, more than a decade of running it led her to “many unexpected, surprising, marvellous events.”
That includes launching MakeItMerry, a non-profit organization that called on the public to write and deliver Christmas cards to unhoused individuals in Calgary for five years. In its first year, the project exceeded the goal of distributing 500 cards, with cards coming from as far as the U.S. and Europe.
“The primary thing it showed me was how meaningful it is for someone to receive a handwritten card,” she says. “We would deliver them to people in the shelters and their hearts were warmed. Sometimes there were tears, sometimes people wanted more than one, sometimes people would keep them and pull it out the next year. It showed them that people cared about them. Even in their current situation, somebody thought to send them a Merry Christmas and it was very, very powerful and meaningful. The whole thing was magical.”
During this time, Brittain-Marshall was gifted a typewriter which she “fell in love with” and led her to host letter-writing socials where she invited those who were as “intrigued and charmed” by typewriters as she was, to enjoy some coffee or a glass of wine while they wrote letters on the typewriters. It led to various work, including leading children’s programs at the library.
“It’s hugely fun and I absolutely loved it because two things are happening: I’m introducing kids to not only these vintage machines, but I’m introducing them to letter writing and snail mail,” Brittain-Marshall says. “I think, particularly, cursive is important, but also how to address the envelope, and what are stamps. These might sound basic, but they are questions I get all the time.”
“I just love blowing their minds because it does exactly that — blows their mind,” she continues. “They can’t get over how they have to push so hard on the key to make an imprint, and they can’t comprehend there’s no spellcheck and no delete key.”
This fascination is not limited to children. Though Brittain-Marshall anticipated the social events would be full of older nostalgic adults, she was surprised to find it was young professionals who came out to the event — including the first she held at Furby House Books last year. These participants often explain their lives are “too digital,” and she has seen the interest in typewriters continuing to rise as AI has developed.
“Typewriters slow you down and we do not like, and are not used, to going slow,” Brittain-Marshall says. “We use AI because it’s faster … but the typewriter is the exact opposite. The typewriter actually slows you down physically. If you’re going too fast, you will jam the key. It will stop you in your tracks.”
Brittain-Marshall says that while some people might be resistant at first because of this slowness, which is her favourite part along with the “magical sounds,” once they get accustomed to it and learn to slow down, they “become very charmed.”
“The beauty of the typewriter is it will force you to slow down,” she says. “We might say to ourselves, ‘I’m going to go slow this weekend’ but, if you sit in front of a typewriter, you are absolutely timestamped. You have to be much more thoughtful.”
Slowing down will be exactly the goal when she brings the typewriters to Furby House Books on June 22 and encourages people to write some snail mail. She encourages creativity through the process, telling people to write letters to a long-lost teacher, the stranger who makes them coffee every morning, or the spouse who lives with them.
“Some people will come back and say, ‘I got a letter back from this person I wrote’ and it becomes a pen-pal thing,” she says. “Beautiful stories come from it.”
For more information on the typewriter social, visit www.ritewhileucan.com or follow Brittain-Marshall on Instagram.
