When no letter came, he took action.
Supported by novelist Salman Rushdie, Sharlet established what would become OccupyWriters.com, a website that now includes a petition of more than 3,200 writers and over 100 written pieces in solidarity with the Occupy movement, including works by authors Francine Prose, Lemony Snicket and Barbara Kingsolver.
"These writers, some of the most imaginative people we know, they're creating an alternative first draft of history," Sharlet said. "It will be eccentric and erratic, but my god, it can't be worse than what the press is doing."
A single sentence stands at the top of the OccupyWriters.com homepage "We, the undersigned writers and all who will join us, support Occupy Wall Street and the Occupy movement around the world."
Prose, a widely-published writer and former president of the PEN American Center, submitted the first piece to Occupy Writers, in which she described her initial visit to Zuccotti Park. She said she was "thrilled" when she first heard about the website.
"I couldn't have been happier," she said in an interview with The Dartmouth. "One of the beauties of the movement was the recognition that all different types of people had different types of skills that could be brought to it. As writers, we could use the language."
After receiving an email from Sharlet, whom Prose knew through work for Harper's Magazine, she in turn sent an email alerting 10 other writers to the website, she said.
"It spread virally, as they say, because everybody recognized how important it was," she said. "People were wanting to know what they could do or how they could show solidarity with this."
Of the 10 writers Prose contacted, all but "one or two" responded, and several wrote "beautiful pieces" for the website, she said.
Rachel Signer, a contributor to The Huffington Post, wrote one of Sharlet's favorite pieces, called "Mic Checked," he said.
"That's the democratic feel of this [project]," Sharlet said. "Here she is next to [Alice Walker] ... here's this writer who's not terribly well published, but her work has the same standing, you're encountering it at the same level and, perhaps like me, falling in love with it."
By the time the site went live on the night of Oct. 13, the team of volunteers working on OccupyWriters.com was "overwhelmed" by the number of writers who had submitted their names, Sharlet said.
Kiera Feldman and Nathan Schneider, two journalists who had worked with Sharlet on previous projects, helped with the website in its initial stages, Sharlet said.
"To a certain extent, it took on a life of its own," Schneider said. "Like the Occupy movement in general, nobody knew exactly what was happening at all times. It means a little bit less accountability, but it's true to the nature of the movement in general."
To confirm that the submitted names belonged to legitimate authors, a volunteer team asked for contact information of writers' agents for verification, Sharlet said.
"We didn't want a prank name to discredit the whole thing," Sharlet said. "We were pretty sure Henry Kissinger was not signing our list. But even with lesser-known writers, we would check this out."
Aimee Le '12, an Occupy Dartmouth supporter, helped volunteer for the website in its early stages, she said. When Sharlet approached the group as it set up its first tent on Oct. 13 to ask them if they had heard about OccupyWriters.com, Le, a published poet who is considering submitting a piece for the website, said she was impressed with the involved authors Sharlet listed.
Despite his involvement with the national Occupy movement and in OccupyWriters.com, Sharlet deliberately avoided getting over-involved with Occupy Dartmouth, Le said.
"The first moment he spoke to us, he made it very clear that he really supported what we were doing, but he wanted it to be something students had power over," Le said.
Without taking control, Sharlet helped group members reflect on their involvement with the movement, Nathan Gusdorf '12, an Occupy Dartmouth supporter, said.
"Having him as a reliable source, one with huge credibility given his position as a well-known, respected journalist, that's been important for us to know what's going on in Occupy nationally," Gusdorf said.
Sharlet also said he cannot predict the Occupy movement's future.
"Anyone who makes a firm prediction about what's going to happen is either a liar or a fool," he said. "What shape it's going to come back in, I don't really know, but I think the thing is going to come roaring back in the spring."
Still, he said that a "winter harvest" of books, films and artwork about the Occupy movement will push the movement through the cold months.
"That'll inevitably change the shape of what comes in the spring," he said. "I hope it's as imaginative as what happened in the fall."
With a book in progress, the future of Occupy Writers is more predictable, Sharlet said. Though publishers have made offers, the writers' movement is seeking a publisher who would not edit or organize the pieces.
"They're going to say, Let us put the big names up front,' and that misses the point," Sharlet said. "We had to turn down commercial publishers. There are times to make money, and this isn't one of them."
Sharlet expects the book to be useful to future historians trying to understand the movement, he said.
"Of all the books I'll ever work on, this is the one I feel the most confident that it will be useful to somebody 20 years from now," he said. "It doesn't mean it's a work of genius. It's a firsthand document of the moment."
Free copies of the book will be distributed to libraries of different Occupy movements, Sharlet said.
"We haven't done any fundraising, but people give us money that we haven't done anything with," Sharlet said. "The idea is to put that towards distributing free copies of the book."
