Help! My Writer’s Brain Was Kidnapped by a Town!

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Visiting a place is one thing—we’ve all been to places that are captivating and unique. But have you ever been kidnapped by a place?

Provincetown Massachusetts is absolutely magical—have you been there? As author Diane Wald reveals, P’town put her under its spell the moment she stepped onto the sand. 

Help! 

My Writer’s Brain Was Kidnapped by a Town!

by Diane Wald



Yes, that’s me, on MacMillan Pier in Provincetown, Massachusetts in 1951, on vacation with my parents. (Dig that saucy nautical outfit, and the ever-stylish Mary Janes!).

 Little did I know then that more almost twenty years later, I’d end up living in that town for three years, and then in another twenty or so years, feel irresistibly drawn to writing a novella set right there.

Provincetown sits like a funky, sun-kissed monarch at the very tip of Cape Cod, where its high-duned beaches, crashing waves, and aromatic pine forests combine to satisfy all your senses. On the outer side of its curved-arm peninsula, the wildness of the Atlantic Ocean beckons; on the inner curve ripples the less rambunctious Cape Cod Bay.

 It’s a simultaneously boisterous and meditative spot where the tiny winter population swells after Memorial Day to a diverse crowd that fills every rentable nook and cranny. That can be overwhelming, but don’t be alarmed: what you really need to do is visit off season.

My parents packed up me and my younger brother and drove us almost every summer from our home in New Jersey to one of the towns on the outer Cape for a week or two, and every year one day was dedicated to visiting Provincetown. I not only got to know the place; I fell in love. Actually, I fell under some kind of a spell. I went back every chance I had. It was as if I’d been kidnapped, but not by evildoers—by a beguiling and mysterious setting.

I was in my twenties, a burgeoning poet, when I was accepted for a fellowship at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. The fellowship was extended for a second year, and I stayed on for a third year working in the town. I was more than hooked; I only forced myself to leave because I wanted to go to grad school. I wasn’t writing fiction then, and I’m sure I wasn’t aware I had the beginnings of a book in my mind, but the perfect setting had been quietly percolating there since I was a young child.

After many years, the arc of my kidnapping came to its inevitable conclusion: I had to pay the ransom and write the novel! Once I fleshed out my main characters, I realized that an unexpected character—Provincetown itself—had made itself indispensable. Sometimes my “town” character actually took over, interacting with the other characters in ways that furthered the action, offering a built-in drama rife with conflict and challenges.

Sure, I could have set the story in an art colony just about anywhere, but I knew it wouldn’t have been as good. In addition to my first-hand knowledge of the place, I needed its texture, its aura.

 Here was a place where a wide array of lifestyles, ages, careers, art forms, and beliefs would allow me to explore my themes of unravelling personal ethics, creativity, love, and friendship. I lived in Provincetown in the 1970s, but I decided to place the story in the 1980s, which allowed me to work in a subplot about a character who succumbed to AIDS.

I know a lot of other writers have had this same experience of using their setting as a character. None of us can imagine To Kill a Mockingbird taking place anywhere but Maycomb, Alabama, or Wuthering Heights anywhere but on the moody Yorkshire moors. I never could have written The Bayrose Files without being kidnapped by Provincetown. 

As I say on the Acknowledgements page at the back of the book, “I’ve got sand in my shoes forever.”

So, I’m wondering, has this ever happened to you? Were you ever kidnapped by a city, town, or geographical location that later became a character in your prose? I’d love to hear about it.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Oh, good question! I’ve been in Provincetown a million times, and it is swarming with people, amazing, hilarious, wonderful. And the food is spectacular. And the atmosphere is beyond unique. 

Readers, have you been to P’town? What place has “kidnapped” your imagination? And as Diane asks, if you are writing, were you ever so captivated by a place that it became a character?

Diane Wald is a poet and novelist who has worked as a motel manager, library assistant, journal circulation manager, English professor, academic dean, and in-house writer for a national animal welfare organization. She has published five chapbooks, four full-length poetry collections, two novels, and hundreds of poems in literary magazines. Her new book, The Bayrose Files, launches May 17, 2025, from Regal House Publishing. She lives seven miles outside of Boston and 65 miles from Provincetown.

THE BAYROSE FILES

Ambitious young journalist Violet Maris secures a coveted residency at a prestigious artists' and writers' colony in 1980s Provincetown using a file of stories written by a friend. Her intention: to write a captivating exposé. However, Violet's promising start at the colony takes a dark turn when tragedy strikes—her friend, the true author of the stories, succumbs to AIDS. This plunges Violet into turmoil, compounded by the weight of the terrible secret she carries. Compelled to confess, she confides in a member of the colony's board with whom she has become romantically involved. The revelation of her deception leads to Violet's expulsion from the program, grappling with disgrace and searching for a path toward redemption and reconciliation—with herself and those she has inadvertently hurt.

https://regal-house-publishing.mybigcommerce.com/the-bayrose-files/