Solitary Walks along the East Anglia Coast
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Solitary Walks along the East Anglia Coast is about the seaside landscape and communities through which I wandered alone during the autumnal and winter months of 2019-20 when I was a visiting scholar at the University of Cambridge. Weather permitting, on weekends I took the train from Cambridge to Cromer, Great Yarmouth, Felixstowe, Lowestoft, and Southwold. The book documents my experiences and thoughts while rambling through these coastal areas during seasons when such resorts are normally shut and only a chance figure wanders on the sands. Woven into the book's fabric are details borrowed from a location's history. So too are references to the seaside town's cultural heritage, to its literary figures, painters, and musicians. The result is an unsettling narrative that creates a portrait of once popular seaside areas along the East Anglia coast that are now simultaneously not only sources of natural beauty and enchantment but also sad reminders of loss, destruction, and neglect.
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SCREENING AND BOOK LAUNCH
December 11, 2025 — Thursday, 5:30 p.m.
Burchfield Penney Art Center, Buffalo State University
December 11, 2025 — Thursday, 5:30 p.m.
Burchfield Penney Art Center, Buffalo State University
On Thursday, December 11, 2025, at 5:30 p.m., Ann C. Colley, SUNY Distinguished Professor, Emerita, will present a screening of her recent work, Solitary Walks along the East Anglia Coast, at the Burchfield Penney Art Center, Buffalo State University. This screening is a departure for Ann. Throughout her career, she has published many an academic book. However, over a year ago, in a moment of what Ann calls “madness,” she decided to take a risk and transform her account of her walks along the shores of the North Sea into an audio/visual version. As a result, with the support of William and Peggy Kothen of Select Sound Recording Studios, she has transformed her most recent book, Solitary Walks along the East Anglia Coast, into a documentary film. The process of producing this has been one of her life’s more pleasurable learning experiences.
On the large screen in the Burchfield Penney auditorium, she will be showing episodes from this audio/visual rendition. Solitary Walks along the East Anglia Coast is about her weekend walks while in residence as a Visiting Fellow at the University of Cambridge. From October, 2019 until March 1, 2020. Ann was in Cambridge in order to research what was to become her 2023 literary study, Coleridge and the Geometric Idiom: Walking with Euclid, published by the Cambridge University Press.
From time to time during this residence in Cambridge, while reading long hours in the University Library, Ann felt an overwhelming desire temporarily to break away from her books and take the train to nearby seaside towns along the East Anglia coast—to Cromer, Great Yarmouth, Felixstowe, Lowestoft, and Southwold. As a result, whenever the weather was permitting (it was winter after all), she hurriedly chose a destination, and on late Friday afternoons, packed some bare essentials, made a hotel reservation, and caught a train to the seaside. On Saturdays, she walked alone along the deserted shores of the North Sea, and on Sundays, rambled in the opposite direction.
Ann’s haunting account of these solitary walks describes the landscape and the communities through which she wandered. It gathers together a series of vibrant and personal impressions that capture the complex character of seaside towns caught between the forces of decline and renewal. The result is an unsettling narrative that paints a portrait of once popular seaside resorts that are now struggling to survive. Although sad reminders of loss, destruction, and neglect, the beauty and enchantment of these destinations and the sea endure.
Woven into the narrative’s fabric are references to a location’s history and reflections on the experience of solitude.
Commentating on the text, David N. Ben-Merre, Professor, Department of English at Buffalo State University, remarks: “This splendid book…is a reminder not so much of a world that seems to be slipping away, but of a world that is so worth holding onto.”
On the large screen in the Burchfield Penney auditorium, she will be showing episodes from this audio/visual rendition. Solitary Walks along the East Anglia Coast is about her weekend walks while in residence as a Visiting Fellow at the University of Cambridge. From October, 2019 until March 1, 2020. Ann was in Cambridge in order to research what was to become her 2023 literary study, Coleridge and the Geometric Idiom: Walking with Euclid, published by the Cambridge University Press.
From time to time during this residence in Cambridge, while reading long hours in the University Library, Ann felt an overwhelming desire temporarily to break away from her books and take the train to nearby seaside towns along the East Anglia coast—to Cromer, Great Yarmouth, Felixstowe, Lowestoft, and Southwold. As a result, whenever the weather was permitting (it was winter after all), she hurriedly chose a destination, and on late Friday afternoons, packed some bare essentials, made a hotel reservation, and caught a train to the seaside. On Saturdays, she walked alone along the deserted shores of the North Sea, and on Sundays, rambled in the opposite direction.
Ann’s haunting account of these solitary walks describes the landscape and the communities through which she wandered. It gathers together a series of vibrant and personal impressions that capture the complex character of seaside towns caught between the forces of decline and renewal. The result is an unsettling narrative that paints a portrait of once popular seaside resorts that are now struggling to survive. Although sad reminders of loss, destruction, and neglect, the beauty and enchantment of these destinations and the sea endure.
Woven into the narrative’s fabric are references to a location’s history and reflections on the experience of solitude.
Commentating on the text, David N. Ben-Merre, Professor, Department of English at Buffalo State University, remarks: “This splendid book…is a reminder not so much of a world that seems to be slipping away, but of a world that is so worth holding onto.”