Praveen Fernandes
Praveen Fernandes is a lawyer, advocate, former Obama administration appointee, art lover, and WITI contributor known for his passion for old-school correspondence, such as handwritten letters. He also has a keen interest in stamps, particularly those with meaningful artwork or themes, and has written on a variety of topics ranging from climate change to intergenerational humor in media.
Recommendations
A Hulu series marked by intergenerational humor, featuring Martin Short, Steve Martin, and Selena Gomez.
A collection of postage stamps celebrating the painter George Morrison, a leading Native American modernist artist.
Postage stamps celebrating the James Webb telescope, the most sensitive telescope ever deployed in space.
A tribute to Japanese American servicemembers of WWII through a collection of postage stamps.
A first novel by a poet, structured as a letter from a Vietnamese-American son who is a writer to a mother who cannot read. The book is a meditation on the limitations of words and explores the distances immigrants travel, both physically and symbolically.
A beloved children’s book by Ezra Jack Keats, which won the Caldecott Medal in 1963, making it the first book with an African-American protagonist to win a significant children’s award.
A collection of illustrated letters from artists and architects, featuring correspondences from figures such as Gio Ponti, Edith Schloss, Miné Okubo, and Alfred J. Frueh.
Editions
On conventions, niceties, and correspondence
On vision, vulnerability, and blind spots
On mail, meaning, and the artwork that appears on US postage