Hello, I’m Glenn. I’m a writer. I write the first drafts of all my book by hand using a fountain pen. Fountain pens are amazing for so many reasons, not the least of which that they’re a low-friction writing experience. When you’re writing 10,000-30,000 words a day by hand, this Matters. Fountain pens reduce hand fatigue because they use water-based liquid ink – it wants to flow, all you do it touch it to the paper to start the capillary action, then move. You actually don’t have to touch the paper at all (though it’s really difficult to train yourself to write that way)!
I received my first fountain pen as a gift when I went to college, from a friend who knew I liked to write. I bought my first bottle of ink in 2000 — Sheaffer Grey –and I still have it. Partly because a bottle of fountain pen ink lasts forever, partly because I used converters some of the time, and partly because I bought a few more bottles of ink along the way. However, I was a pretty Serious Pen User — meaning, my pen was for special occasions only, it had Serious ink colors. I took it on interviews and wrote greeting cards with it, but it was too special to bring out day-to-day. I bought a few other pens along the way, but they were all more things I used for special occasions.
That all changed when I started writing my second book. (It and my first one never went anywhere — maybe I’ll pick them up and rewrite them some day…) I was going through a hard time at work and using writing to help me cope with it, and I wanted to make the writing feel special. So I pulled out a leather-bound journal and one of my nice pens and started writing. Before then, I’d always written anything important in ballpoint pen (the inkier the better) – thinking fountain pen ink — liquid ink — was inferior because it’s not archival. Well, I quickly learned that a) I didn’t care about that because it was so much easier to write with liquid ink, and b) some fountain pen inks ARE archival. That’s when fountain pens became my everyday tools and I discovered my mission to help people stop being afraid of fountain pens and learn their benefits.
A few years after that, I worked with someone who was really into fancy paper. They told me, “Oh, my handwriting is too bad to use a fountain pen, but I love nice stationary.” Challenge accepted! I gave them a starter pen, a week later they’d bought their own, a week after that they brought four different colors of ink to work and said, “Hey, have you tried these?” “Oh, I don’t use orange ink,” I said (with some disdain), “I only use business colors.” I’m a serious professional, after all, bringing my pens to work! Well, my new pen friend was not worried about appearing to be a serious professional and had a blast with all their new colors, inking up a new one each day. At the end of the week, I was puzzled. How was this person, whom hadn’t even used a fountain pen two weeks prior, more excited about pens than I was? How were they having so much fun?
I bought the orange ink.
That was the final nail in my Serious Pen User coffin.
What my friend discovered was the joy of ink. Sure, fountain pens are great tools, they make writing by hand a wonderful experience. But I’d been limiting myself by considering them luxury items, special occasion things, giving them serious purpose. I’d never had FUN with my pens. I’d never bought a pen that wasn’t black or silver and looked like it belonged in an office. When my friend brought a cotton-candy-pink pen to work and used it in front of our clients, I felt so nervous — what if someone said something, what if they thought it was immature? But it only got positive attention. It lightened the mood. And my friend got to gush about their newfound tool/hobby/obsession, which ended up with us both pulling ALL of our pens out and everyone playing with pens and ink for a few minutes. It was great!
That’s why I’ve created Ink Passport. To help people find the joy their fountain pens can bring. Fun inks, different papers, different materials in the pen — they all contribute to the writing experience. I want everyone to be able to be able to find their ideal writing experience.
Which means: affordable pens! Affordable paper products. And, most importantly for me, ink samples.
It only took a few times of buying an ink, at $20-40 a bottle, getting it in my pen and learning I did NOT like it to sour me on the ink-trying experience. What am I supposed to do with all this leftover ink? I don’t want to throw it away…I can’t return it…I just wish I’d known what it was actually like before I bought it. I tried to do ink samples, before buying the whole bottle, after that…but they were so wasteful. I try to avoid plastic consumption, and all the samples came in plastic tubes that I didn’t have a use for afterwards and no one wanted back (because the ink stains sometimes). It also takes a LOT of time to browse inks and find ones you want to try.
Birmingham Pen Company came out with their Pen Parcels around the time I was doing my sample shopping. They were releasing 5 colors of ink each month and you could buy a parcel with samples of all their inks or whole bottles. I absolutely loved it. It was an ink surprise in the mail every month, something that gave me a frisson of excitement when it arrived. I got colors I wouldn’t have necessarily picked out for myself but usually found I liked. I was in love! But, Birmingham Pen wasn’t able to sustain the Pen Parcels with everything else they had going on, so they ended in 2019. And left a void that I needed to fill.
I started Ink Passport in October of 2019, after hearing that Birmingham Pen didn’t have immediate plans for resuming their pen parcels. I wanted ink in the mail, I wanted to fill that niche, but I didn’t want to compete with them — afterall, it was their idea originally. Unfortunately, October 2019 was when things were going really downhill in my Day Job, then the pandemic hit, then I got a NEW job which tortured me for a few years, all culminating in me not being able to actually kick off the business. However, as of December 2022, I am unemployed and find myself with enough time and energy to finally make this a reality!
So, who is Ink Passport? It’s me, Glenn, a writer who loves fountain pens and came late to ink. It’s the spirit of Birmingham Pen’s original Pen Parcels and my friend who introduced me to fine paper and fun inks. It’s my mission to bring the joy of pens and ink to as many people as possible by making it affordable and accessible. It’s the community of pen and ink lovers who want to experience delight in their pens and share it with others. I hope it’s you, too.
(No, but seriously, why is it called Ink Passport? Well, you’ll find out soon!)
Affiliation Notice
I have no explicit or implicit affiliation with Birmingham Pen Co. I am a fan of their pens and ink and a customer, but I have no business relationship with them, nor they with me. Birmingham Pen Co. values its one-to-one relationship with their customers and so does not have wholesale or affiliate relationships with any company, per their wholesale policy.