Since I became interested in drawing and calligraphy, the tools of the trade are a necessity if not an end in themselves. To a collector like me, stationery—especially fountain pens—can be like crack. I found a community online, mainly bloggers and also the Fountain Pen Network, Instagram, Twitter, Slack and app.net users.
Central to this conglomeration is The Pen Addict, a blog run by Brad Dowdy and for the last four years also a podcast by the American Brad and the British Myke Hurley. A few people listen just to hear these pals chatting but there is a lot of information imparted en route. In fact I have gone back to the first podcast to take notes!
You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s half-gone
I think it’s easy to take all of this for granted. The podcast gives a good, often entertaining, overview of what’s happening while for detailed information there is the blog. This week @iMyke has a throat infection and missed the podcast. Azizah of Gourmet Pens substituted ably. Myke should be back next week, but I should imagine his schedule is so disrupted that he might not be able to take up the responses to his cry for help in his last podcast: not being able to use all the notebooks he has collected. I’m planning a little essay which might help. This will be my next blog entry.
Anyway, Brad and Myke, I love what you’re doing and I like many others were happy to chip in to your Kickstarter to get Myke to the US again (and to get some Pen Addict notebooks) not to mention supporting Brad working full-time on the Pen Addict. Thanks!
Pensive 