Noting that one of the consequences of temporarily closing two months ago was the inability to get new notes on the shop's public typewriter, Literati Bookstore, Ann Arbor, Mich., wrote on Facebook: "Yet, now more than ever, I want to read the notes our customers often left behind: Notes of love, loss, introspection, hope, and, yes, the occasional fart joke. I feel like we all need an anonymous outlet during these unsettling times.
"When I lamented this to Oliver Uberti, co-editor of our book Notes from a Public Typewriter, he said, 'I have an idea.' He called up his brother Justin, a software engineer at Google, and a few weeks later, voila!--a virtual typewriter complete with clicks, clacks, and a carriage return! The world's smallest publishing house is once again accepting submissions. Head over to our homepage, and scroll down. We'd love if you left a note behind. And, as with life (and our analog machines), there is no delete key. Type strongly and don't look back."