What I do with what you tell me

• I collect your name and email only when you hand them to me.
• I never sell, rent, or trade your address. Not once, not to anyone.
• You can leave the pen pals list from the bottom of any letter.
• I never see your card details. The payment processor handles that.
• Ask me what I have about you, or ask me to delete it, and I will.

What I collect

If you write to me through the contact form, I get your name, your email address, and whatever you chose to say. If you become a pen pal, I get your email address and, if you gave it, your first name.

If you buy something, I get your name, your email address, and a record of what you bought, so I can send it to you and answer questions about it later.

The site also records ordinary, aggregate traffic information — which pages get read, roughly where readers are in the world. It isn’t tied to your name and I don’t try to work out who you are from it.

What I use it for

To write back to you. To send the occasional letter, if you asked for it. To deliver what you bought and sort out any problem with it. To notice, in the aggregate, which essays people actually read.

That’s the whole list. I don’t run advertising, I don’t build profiles, and I don’t use your address to follow you around the internet.

The letters

Pen pals get a letter when there’s something worth sending — no schedule, no pitch. Every letter has an unsubscribe link at the bottom, and using it takes effect immediately. You don’t owe me a reason.

Who else touches it

A few services do the work I can’t do myself. Each one only handles what it needs, and each has its own privacy policy:

• Hosting — Netlify, which serves the pages and receives form submissions.
• Letters — Flodesk, which stores the pen pals list and sends the letters.
• Payments — Stripe, which takes the card details. They never reach me.
• Scheduling — Calendly, on the coffee page, which handles the booking and the details you enter there.

Beyond that, I share your information only if the law genuinely requires it.

Cookies

The site uses only what it needs to work and to count visits in aggregate. No advertising cookies, no third-party trackers stitching your reading together across other sites.

How long I keep it

Correspondence, as long as it’s useful to the conversation. Pen pal addresses, until you leave the list. Purchase records, as long as I’m required to keep them for tax and accounting.

What you can ask of me

Ask what I hold about you and I’ll tell you. Ask me to correct it and I will. Ask me to delete it and I’ll delete everything I’m not legally required to keep. Depending on where you live you may have these rights formally; you have them here regardless.

Write to hello@jeanniesullivan.com and I’ll answer.

Children

This site isn’t meant for children under 16, and I don’t knowingly collect anything from them. If you think I have, tell me and I’ll remove it.

If this changes

I’ll update this page and change the date below. If a change is significant and you’re on the pen pals list, I’ll say so in a letter rather than making you notice on your own.

Last updated July 2026.