A long overdue message from the writer

Dear readers,

After writing, printing, cutting out, and gluing together more than 400 fake secrets over the past two years, it's time for me to call it quits.

The reason is simply that I've run out of ideas for silly postcards. (If you've looked at PostSecret lately, you might have noticed that they're suffering from similar issues.) I've already gone through two long, unannounced hiatuses in the hope that I'd be able to come back with some real content, but alas, that well has more or less dried up.

Still, I'll miss writing for this site. I don't think I'll ever again be able to look at an "Avery Permanente Glue Stic" (or any glue stic, for that matter) without getting a little bit sentimental. And I'm hardly ready to part with Fred Jurgens, that lovable scamp. I'm sure he'll crop up again elsewhere in my writing.

It's been a pleasure to read your comments over the years, especially the ones where you guys debate whether anyone has a right to be mad at me for not updating consistently because I provide you with a free service. To my supporters: I am touched by your support. To my detractors: your words weigh heavily upon my soul.

I'm keeping this blog online, so the archive will still be available as an everlasting memorial to the satiric potential of the secret-on-postcard form. And I may end up posting a secret or two more, if the inspiration strikes me...so keep this site in your feed reader if you want to see that.

There will be new, more-consistently updated(!) projects from me soon, and if you'd like to hear about them when they happen, sign up for the PostRejects newsletter.

In closing, I would like to relate an amusing story. I spoke to Frank Warren at a PostSecret event some months ago. Nice guy-- and definitely aware of PostRejects. "You know," he said to me when I introduced myself, "people actually think you steal secrets from my trash".

It turns out that Frank would frequently receive e-mails about Postrejects, some alerting him to Fred Jurgens's fictitious pilfering of his garbage, others expressing hurt and betrayal at the thought that their own secrets might have been thrown away. He was not pleased about this.

I'd like to set the record straight for those people: Frank has not thrown your secret away. He would never do that.

In fact, the only reason he has not put your secret in his books or on his website is that it is simply too precious, too raw, too unimaginably moving to share with the rest of the world. So he has placed it in his personal archive, like the priceless treasure that it is.

On certain Wednesdays, Frank gently removes your postcard from storage and sits with it in his favorite armchair, running his fingers lovingly across its face, feeling the tiny ridges along each cut-out piece of text, and imagines the heartbreaking story that lies within. A single tear runs down his &c &c &c &c &c

All the best,
Mike