Imagine Hemingway’s thoughts as he walked the streets of Paris in the 1920s. Could Elizabeth Bishop have brought a moose to life from her home in Massachusetts? What does Stuart Dybek see when his creamer plumes into his coffee? For the writer, education doesn’t end when class does. The crafting of a story or a poem doesn’t end when we lay down the pen, and as a writer, you already know the crafting began long before you wrote the first word.

To write, we must experience, observe, interpret, remember. This is why every part of the day during the duration of the Summer Writing Institute matters. A number of excursions will be planned outside of workshops, seminars, and readings. Though we won’t be gazing at the sky from the Eiffel Tower, the students, mentors, and faculty will chisel our way through what Spokane has to offer for inspiration.

Activities might include visiting one of Spokane’s magnificent parks such as Manito or Riverfront,  walking the galleries of the Jundt Art Museum or the Museum of Arts and Culture, or smelling the dust jackets in Auntie’s Bookstore’s used book collection.

Beyond immersing ourselves into Spokane culture, excursions allow for the time to experience the world within a community of writers. In two or five years, you might find the trash-eating goat at Riverfront Park making its way into a story or poem. All educational rhetoric aside, getting out of the classroom is just plain fun.