The making of a PostSecret book

Working late into the night on the floor of a Manhattan hotel, the founder of the hugely popular online secret-sharing project assembled dozens of new secrets for a new manuscript.

PostSecret founder Frank Warren went to New York earlier this month to present the manuscript for his next book, Confessions on Life, Death&God. Before he could do so, however, he had to lay out the dozens of never-before-seen secrets he'd been saving for a as much as two years on the floor in order. This is the scene in room 412 of the Omni Hotel, where he did the late-night work. Frank Warren/PostSecret

For many of the devoted fans of the PostSecret project, Frank Warren's constantly updated collection of secrets anonymous people have sent him on postcards, buying Warren's books is a no-brainer.

Already, he has had four PostSecret books published, and for several months, he has been encouraging submissions of new secrets for the next hard-copy installment, "Confessions on Life, Death&God." And on May 19, he wrote on Sunday, as part of his weekly online presentation of a set of new secrets, he worked late into the night in a New York hotel laying out on the floor the dozens of secrets that make up the book's manuscript.

"I went to NYC with the never-before-seen secrets for the new book," Warren wrote. "I checked into the Omni Hotel and went to work laying out pages. Deep into the night, I arranged postcards I had been setting aside for more than two years. The next afternoon I walked to HarperCollins with the finalized book, and some memorable dreams from that morning."

Then, befitting one of the traditions of members of the PostSecret community--leaving a secret-inscribed post-card in a place where a stranger will later find it--Warren wrote his own secret and left it behind.

One would hope that the person who discovers this postcard--left in the desk drawer of room 412 in the Omni Hotel in New York--is a PostSecret fan. The card reads, 'PostSecret Confessions on Life, Death and God was assembled here in room 412 on May 19, 2009.' Frank Warren/PostSecret

"Before I left my room," Warren told his site's readers, "I wrote a special postcard and left it behind in the desk drawer...If you ever stay in this hotel room, you may find that the postcard I left behind is gone. But look up under the desk drawer for a special secret, and pay attention to your dreams that night."

I think that's great. Now I just worry that the hotel's management will decide to sell the desk on eBay. If they do, I hope they donate some of the proceeds to Warren's chosen charity, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline.

On June 22, Geek Gestalt will kick off Road Trip 2009. After driving more than 12,000 miles in the Pacific Northwest, the Southwest and the Southeast over the last three years, I'll be looking for the best in technology, science, military, nature, aviation and more in Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana and South and North Dakota. If you have a suggestion for someplace to visit, drop me a line. And in the meantime, join the Road Trip 2009 Facebook page and follow my Twitter feed.

Featured Video
6
This content is rated TV-MA, and is for viewers 18 years or older. Are you of age?
Sorry, you are not old enough to view this content.

The problem with hoarding photos on your phone

Do you have hundreds (or thousands) of photos on your phone? This one's for you.

by Sharon Profis
http://www.cnet.com/news/the-making-of-a-postsecret-book/
www.cnet.com
crawl=CC-MAIN-2015-35
92240
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:JNPGNB2OUBHLXTVDGY4AH4UW3NFBI3CK
<urn:uuid:4088449e-3309-402c-a837-b8f69c1a40fa>
2015-08-30T19:57:43Z
72.37.164.8
sha1:RMH7JNXP2RC4M32FQGYYD3SLYJ2UND3O
<urn:uuid:a6270fd4-ff16-49df-9018-f4c018b0e56a>
http://www.cnet.com/news/the-making-of-a-postsecret-book/
response
<urn:uuid:e308a0bf-f6b7-4177-870e-16c608c53cb1>
robots: classic
hostname: ip-10-171-96-226.ec2.internal
software: Nutch 1.6 (CC)/CC WarcExport 1.0
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2015-35
operator: CommonCrawl Admin
description: Wide crawl of the web for August 2015
publisher: CommonCrawl
format: WARC File Format 1.0
conformsTo: http://bibnum.bnf.fr/WARC/WARC_ISO_28500_version1_latestdraft.pdf