This Sunday marks the start of Write Out Cape Cod, a two-week event series all across the Cape that encourages people to get outside and write in nature.
Barnstable Land Trust's Sue Dahling Sullivan helped bring the national program to the Cape. CAI's Gilda Geist spoke with her recently to learn more.
Gilda Geist What is Write Out, and how did this partnership, Write Out Cape Cod, come to be?
Sue Dahling Sullivan Write Out is a national program that the National Writing Project initiated in a partnership with the National Park Service. And we, Barnstable Land Trust, did one program last year with a local author, and it was magical. People who were non-writers loved writing, especially with nature prompts. So, I had reached out to the national community engagement manager to find out if anybody had done a regional effort, because we had had great success in the conservation community in developing First Day Hikes Cape Cod, which is a regional effort on January 1 where all the conservation community offers great free hikes. Hundreds and hundreds of people come. And that was the first in the nation too, because most of it had been in state parks. So surprisingly, the national Write Out didn't have a regional model at all. So, they were very excited about it. Then this spring, the Arts Foundation at Cape Cod hosted a Creative Conversation, one of their first in a series bringing together the conservation community and the creative community. So, I said, why don't we do a Write Out Cape Cod? And the Arts Foundation has been a fabulous regional partner for us to do this launch.
GG Can you give us a preview of some of the events for Write Out Cape Cod and just kind of an overview of what this is going to look like?
SDS It runs from October 11 till October 25, and we had sort of spread the word to conservation groups, the cultural community, etcetera, and literally every day I'm hearing about new events and new programs. So, we have programs and partners with libraries like Cotuit and Brewster and Sturgis in Barnstable Village. Land trusts [in] Barnstable, Dennis, Harwich, Brewster, and Wareham are all doing some events, like Words by the Water and Wild with Words, poetry safaris, nature journaling. The Cultural Center of Cape Cod is inviting people to go outside and use their space to write reflections. And Barnstable Community Innovation School, which is an elementary school in Hyannis, K-3, is going to have a Write Out Cape Cod Day where every student will have time to go outside and do some writing.
GG For a lot of people, writing can feel like a chore or feel intimidating. It's something they associate with maybe homework or writing work emails. Some folks who are listening to this are maybe apprehensive to give this a try. How do you see this program as being a way to draw people in who wouldn't normally do something like this?
SDS Being in nature is literally common ground for everybody. You can go outside your back door, you can walk in the park, you can just walk down the street, and you're going to experience something in the natural world. And writing, yes, I think people more and more have become intimidated by the idea. But you can write three words, you can write a sentence, you can write in your journal, you can write a song, a play, a novel. From other writing projects that we've offered at Barnstable Land Trust, a lot of non-writers come because they're like, maybe I'll discover something. And honestly, they're some of the most inspiring workshops I've been to because they share their work and it's amazing what people have to say and how they say it. We have a couple of programs that are going to be nature haikus. I had to go back to my old school days and go, what was a haiku? And it's five syllables in the first line, seven syllables in the second line, and five syllables in the third line. It's such a simple structure, and I think it's a great opportunity for people who don't really write just to write a haiku, five-seven-five, about what they're seeing, what they're feeling, what they're hearing. And I think it can be really meaningful.
