AustLit

'The letter, in its conventional form, is essentially non-fiction, though fiction’s been known to mine the epistolary field with great success (think of the classics Frankenstein and The Colour Purple). The draw in using the form as fiction might lie in the immediacy and in the intimacy predicated by the use of second person “you.” as fiction, letters assume an addressee from the story’s opening, thus proving to be (for the most part, anyway) between two people: “I” and “you.” Though aside from the obligatory questions and niceties—how are you?; I hope this letter finds you well—the focus of the letter is always its writer, so given the nature of letters’ musings and related happenings, we should really think of it as being between “I” and “I.” in her debut short story collection, Letters to Pessoa, award winning poet Michelle Cahill takes this theory to new, layered heights as she pens seven letters to philosophers and writers as well as incorporating heteronyms (characters created by a writer specifically allowing for different styles of writing, something the poet Fernando Pessoa mastered) into stories as a complementary way of getting at identity.' (Introduction)