Privacy

The short version

What this comes down to

What I collect

From the website. Your first name, your email address, and which thing you were looking at when you wrote to me. That is all the form holds.

At checkout, for paper letters. Your mailing address, only if you choose By Post or By Hand. You enter it on Stripe's secure checkout page, and a PO box or a mail service is completely fine. How it is handled is written below, so you can read it before you ever enter it.

What you write to me. The letters you send, and anything you tell me about your life in them.

Payment. If you subscribe, card details go directly to Stripe. I never see them, hold them, or have access to them.

I do not use advertising trackers on this site, and I do not build a profile of you for marketing.

Your address, specifically

Some of the women reading this are leaving somebody. That shapes how this works.

• Your address is used to post your letters and for nothing else.
• It is never sold, rented, shared, or added to any other list.
• It is shared with a printing and mailing service only to the extent needed to physically post your envelope. Nothing about the contents of your letter goes with it.
• If you write with a different writer later, that writer is not given your address. Mail routes through a post office box.
• You can ask for plain envelopes with no return name at any time, for any reason, and you do not have to explain.
• You can ask me to delete your address and switch to email at any time, and it comes off the file.

Who else touches your information

A small number of services make this possible, and each one sees only what it needs:

• The website host receives and stores what you type into the form.
• The email service carries messages between us.
• The printing and mailing service receives your name and address in order to post a physical letter to you.
• Stripe handles payment if you subscribe, and holds your card details rather than me.

Each of these has its own privacy policy, and none of them is given your letters.

Your letters

What you write belongs to you. I keep your letters so that our correspondence makes sense over time, and so that your Bound Year can be made at the end of twelve months if you want one.

Nothing you write is published, quoted, posted, read aloud, or shown to another person without your permission in writing, each time, for that specific use. Not anonymously. Not as an example. Not in a pitch.

If I ever want to quote something, I will ask, and no is a complete answer that changes nothing about your subscription.

Your Quiet Room. If you have a personal page, our letters live there.

• You choose how they reach you: only on your page, on your page with a copy to your email, or by email instead.
• Nothing comes to your inbox unless you choose it, and you can change your mind from your page at any time.
• Either way, I keep our letters together so I always know where we left off, and so your Bound Year can be made if you want one.

Your room's link, and pages kept on your device

Your Quiet Room lives at a private link made just for you. It is not listed anywhere and search engines are asked not to show it, but the link is the only key, so anyone who has it can open the page. Keep it somewhere only you can see.

• Pages you keep in your room, and your choice of how letters reach you, are saved only in the browser on that phone or computer.
• Nothing you write there is sent to me unless you tap Send this one to Cynthia, and you can clear everything from that device at any time.
• Your choice of how letters reach you is also sent to me, so I write to you the way you asked.

Voice notes in your Quiet Room

If you tap Say it, your room records your voice. The recording is kept only on your phone or computer, with your other pages, until you choose what to do with it. Nothing is sent or turned into text on your phone.

• If you tap Send this one to Cynthia, the recording comes to me through the same secure form as a written page, which is stored by Netlify, the company that hosts this site.
• I listen to it and write out your own words as a letter, so your voice note can live in your room as part of your history, beside my letter in reply.
• To do this, your recording is transcribed into text by a secure transcription service.
• After I've written back, I delete the recording, unless you ask me to keep it for your Bound Year.
• I never share it or play it for anyone.

A recording on your phone can be found by anyone who uses your phone. If that worries you, write your page instead, or download and then clear your pages from the bottom of your room.

A Page for Tonight

Nothing you write on A Page for Tonight is sent to me, saved on this site, or stored in your browser, unless you choose to send it. It stays in that window until you choose to let it go, or close the window. There are two exceptions, both only when you choose them:

• If you tap Send it to Cynthia, your page comes to me with your name and email, as your first free letter, and I answer it in a Quiet Room of your own. It is then kept like the rest of our letters.
• A page you choose to send for your Bound Year is kept with your letters, never shared, bound into your book, and handled like the rest of your correspondence.
• In the Quiet Room journal, if you tap Email it to me, your page and its keepsake PDF pass once through my email service, straight to the address you type, and no copy is kept. Only a small count of how many were sent is kept, without your words, so the feature can't be misused.

How long I keep things

Your letters and correspondence are kept while you are writing with me, and for one year afterwards in case you come back. Then they are destroyed unless you have asked me to keep them.

Your mailing address is deleted within thirty days of you ending paper letters.

You can ask me to delete everything at any point, and I will, and I will tell you when it is done.

When something in a letter worries me

If you write about being in danger, I will reply, I will believe you, and I will include the numbers for people trained to help. I will not investigate, contact anyone on your behalf, or share what you wrote, except where the law requires it of me.

The main exception is the safety of a child. Florida law requires reports of suspected child abuse from any person, and I will follow the law where it applies. I would rather you know that now than discover it later.

Age

This is written for adults. Please do not use it if you are under eighteen. If I learn that someone under eighteen has written in, I will delete their information.

Changes, and reaching me

If this policy changes in a way that matters, I will email everyone it affects rather than quietly updating the page.

Anything at all, including asking what I hold about you or asking me to delete it: cynthia@thelongletters.com.