Using electronic mail (E-mail), the instructor of a master's level drama class at a Finnish university and an introductory literature instructor at Indiana University-Perdue University at Indianapolis communicated between themselves and served as intermediaries for communication between two groups of their students. While instructional levels and language requirements differed, the two classes read the same plays. Students in both classes enjoyed the experience and supported its continuation. The fact that each group had in the other a real audience helped the student writers understand what to include in their stories; students wrote on both literary and personal topics. The cross-cultural exchanges helped students explore what was universal and what was culturally bound in literary interpretation. Future efforts in this area would be improved by direct communication between students, and the American students called for more similar writing assignments than the two groups in the study were assigned. (An appendix contains excerpts from the E-mail exchanges.) (SG)