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Postsecret -- Writer's Poke #103

For Writers:

In 2004, Frank Warren acted on a simple idea. Give folks postpaid postcards with his address on them, and invite them to send him their secrets. And believe or not, people did.

Each week, Warren posts a new batch of secrets to his blog -- http://www.postsecret.blogspot.com/, and over the past few years, he's collected around 100,000 secrets. Some of these have also been published in book form.

Critics of Warren's blog and books say that he is somehow "exploiting" the people that send him their secrets -- as if secrets were meant to remain, well, secret. And although his blog continues to be advertisement-free, they claim that he has no business profiting off of others with the sale of the Postsecret books.

On the other hand, people visit his blog by the tens of thousands, and he has won quite a few awards and public acclaim for what started out as a pretty simple idea.

Would you send Frank Warren, or any stranger, one of your secrets? If so, which one would you select and why? If not, why not? Would you be more inclined to tell a secret to a stranger or a close friend? Why?

"Nothing makes us so lonely as our secrets." -- Paul Tournier

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