Hello walk mates
We're less than a week away from my tester pop-up newsletter in which I walk every day and then send you a digital postcard about it.
Back in the summer – when you signed up to be a guinea-pig for this – I wasn't sure where I'd be walking. But I've found somewhere. It's new (to me), by the seaside and on the train network from where I live in Birmingham. I'll let you know where I've landed in the first email which is due on Monday.
In short, from next Monday to Friday, you'll receive a daily walk 'postcard'. After it ends, I'll delete my list of subscribers and there'll be no more emails from this pop-up newsletter. If it works, however, I'll probably do it again somewhere else with a different challenge. I'm calling the pop-up 'Last of the Summer Wires' because autumn is knocking on the door but, for now, we have warmth and the last rays of the summer sun before it heads south for winter.
I don't know exactly what will happen or what I'm doing – and I kind of like that. I would like to be more spontaneous and overthink things less so this is my chance to do that. It may all go wrong, of course, in which case I have a diary practice and former life as a freelance travel journalist to fall back on. But the aim is to explore new territory, literally and creatively.
I have set some basic rules, however, so you can feel as if you are there in different ways. Each email will have:
one photo
text of no more than 250 words
one minute of video from somewhere along the trail
Why am I doing this? This is my holiday and time off, after all.
Well... After beginning a creative walking practice in 2019 (after three years of a fitness-based walking habit), I would like to see if I can connect this with my writing, photography and collage.
Does writing exist if no one reads it? Maybe, maybe not. But having an audience/community seems a part of it. And I've been inspired by CraigMod, who produces the Roden and Ridgeline newsletters, and who takes a whole raft of watchers along with him on his long-distance walks in Japan. He's journalistic but also poetic, and I relate to that.
Every journey, even a non-physical one, starts with a small step. This is mine. So I hope you'll enjoy going on this walk with me virtually. Please feel free to send responses and let me know you are there, although I won't be able to reply next week.
See you on Monday!
Wish you were here.
Fiona
More at: Fionacullinan.com