shorelines
Highlights
Walking the blue and the green
We welcome back Martyn Howe as a Walking Writers Salon guest to celebrate his new book The Coast is Our Compass. Why are we drawn to a place where the land meets the sea? And what deeper truths emerge when these instincts come together in a journey around England’s shoreline? The Coast is Our Compass
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• Walking Contención Island
This project documents a series of walks undertaken during the three Covid-19 lockdowns, creating an imaginary island called Contención Island through mapped routes, chance-determined shorelines, and sound recordings. It explores themes of embodied walking, the nature of borders, and the symbolic resonance of the island within urban and ecological contexts.
• Shorelines
The shoreline of Swanage Bay, part of Dorset’s Jurassic Coast UNESCO World Heritage Site, features unique geology including listric fault lines and fossil-rich strata such as Portland stone and Wealden clay. Observing this landscape with his geologist father, the author reflects on both the ancient history embedded in the rocks and the contemporary sight of empty cruise ships moored nearby, highlighting the shoreline’s role as a liminal space between land, sea, and time.
When Craft becomes Art
Hosted by Ali Pretty, walking artist, community activist and founding artistic director of the 2025 Beach of Dreams coastal art festival that will bring a festival of banner art, sculpture, performance and storytelling to the coastline of Britain. She asks “when does craft become art?“, and to this café has invited Taiwan Thousand Mile Trail
SubstanzWalk, Introduction to Substanzraum
SubstanzWalk is a geo-located audio walk located in the dunes of Westduinpark, Den Haag, inspired by the essay "Substanzraum, A new approach to global space." The approximately 45-minute walk combines synthetic and environmental sounds with narrated text fragments to explore a new concept of space.
Sunrise Sound Walk, Port Albert
Can you imagine listening near Lake Huron at dawn, or with the many species in a woodland trail? Our four Sunrise Sound Walks, led by Canadian environmental artist and composer Anne Bourne, will explore the Lake’s wave patterns, the complex resonance of its deep waters, tectonic currents, the shifting shoreline sands, and the many pulses
• Low Line to Shoreline – every place tells a story a creative writing and sound walk workshop (on-line)
Join in a 75-90 minute on-line workshop, in which you try your hand at creative writing, recording your voice and mixing ambient sounds. This workshop is open to anyone, even if you were unable to join the preceding on-the-ground event.
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Writing Words of Wonder – Shoreline Stories
A workshop is to help you become a better nature writer. Over the course of 90-120 minutes we’ll use two complementary forms - haiku and flash fiction - and draw inspiration from the shoreline (sea, lake, pond, river or stream) and other parts of the natural world.
• Writing Words of Wonder – Shoreline Stories
A workshop is to help you become a better nature writer. Over the course of 90-120 minutes we’ll use two complementary forms - haiku and flash fiction - and draw inspiration from the shoreline (sea, lake, pond, river or stream) and other parts of the natural world.
• Walking pieces
Listening to Abu Dhabi
Soundscape compositions based on Abu Dhabi maps, experienced along the Abu Dhabi Corniche, illustrating changes in urban soundscapes caused by rising sea levels and temperatures. The project was created for Keira Simmons' Capstone Thesis at New York University Abu Dhabi and includes an accompanying research paper available upon request.
Articles elsewhere
Fifty Walks: 43
Shore Walk, Gabriola Island, British ColumbiaMy lungs open and my heart softens when I'm in a place like this. The air smells like salt and seaweed, and there's a small cool breeze. The tide is coming in. There's a fierce confusion of waves just off shore, where an inlet rushes in from around the island and tumbles over the current. A trail through the woods, along the shore, then picking my way back among the rocks, driftwood, barnacles and sea plants. I wish I could stay longer. [...]
Fifty Walks: 42
Stanley Park, Vancouver, BCFrom getting off the bus in Stanley Park to stepping onto the water taxi going to Granville Island, this is the middle walk in full day of walking and talking and pausing and post-conference decompressing. We walk through the shady forest of Stanley Park, so green and ferny and mossy and calm, and out to the beaches. Scrambling and ambling along the beaches is the slowest and most delightful bit. The hidden shore at low tide, the crabs and clams, the beach treasures; a [...]
Events
Writing Words of Wonder – Shoreline Stories
Regrettably this event has had to be CANCELLED. Brought back by popular demand, and to celebrate 2023 “Year of the Coast”, we are delighted to be able to offer this online workshop with El Rhodes, our creative writing champion, in which you can sharpen your skills and make submissions to the Shorelines project. The aim
• The spaces between the words – Practices of locative literature
Libraries of Walks, Shorelines, Haiku Encounter, Sauntering Verse, In a different LENS & International Analogio Festival locative literature projects An online panel with Stefaan van Biesen, Elspeth (Billie) Penfold, Andrew Stuck, Babak Fakhamzadeh, Lucy Jeffery, Sissy Papathanassiou and Geert Vermeire. Can we shape a (digital) literary form using the world around us? What happens to
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