Update: See photos of this event on my Instagram
Releasing a monarch butterfly is a magical experience. I’m always surprised how moving I find it every time, no matter how many butterflies I set free into the sky. Those tiny, featherlight feet tickling your palm. The monarch’s wings opening and closing, testing its newfound freedom. The launch – sudden, heartlifting, surprising – climbing into the blue blue blue sky like a bubble from a child’s wand, and onward into the unknowable.
To set monarchs free on Cape Cod, long a touchstone place for me, will make it all the sweeter. In college, I worked for the U.S. Geological Survey at a field site on Cape Cod, taking groundwater and pond samples at and around Otis Airforce Base. Later, that work led to my senior geology thesis investigating phosphate isotopes in groundwater. Since then, I’ve camped, explored, and written both poetry and prose about the Cape and its natural landscapes. I can’t wait to do a book event there.
So, I’m thrilled for this monarch butterfly release and event for my novel The Monarchs of Winghaven, in collaboration with Titcomb’s Bookshop and Green Briar Nature Center. It will take place August 1 at 10am at Green Briar Nature Center in Sandwich, Cape Cod.
Aimed at ages 8-12, but I always also love to see littler kids and kids at heart of all ages.
