Travel Blog: Life of a Travel Writer
Books Editor: ‘Travel Writing Is Among the Trivial Genres’
by Jim Benning | 01.17.06 | 6:48 AM ET
Last week on World Hum, Thomas Swick blogged about the Key West Literary Seminar, which took place earlier this month and featured Pico Iyer, Tim Cahill, Barry Lopez, Kate Wheeler and other writers talking about travel writing. We thought that would be the last we heard of it. But on Sunday, his colleague at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Books Editor Chauncey Mabe, wrote a column about the event. Mabe was, to put it mildly, unimpressed. Iyer and Cahill “offered opposing examples of the way writers can make fools of themselves in talking extemporaneously.” Lopez spoke “in tones not heard since Moses descended the mount.”
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by Tom Swick | 01.13.06 | 8:52 AM ET
Dear Farris Hassan…
by Jim Benning | 01.12.06 | 2:57 PM ET
The South Florida Sun-Sentinel’s Ralph De La Cruz writes an open letter to the 16-year-old American journalism student who made headlines with his trip to Iraq last month. “I admire your spunk and can-do spirit,” De La Cruz writes. “Appreciate how eloquently you’ve spoken about the sacrifices the armed forces are making in Iraq, and about how guilty you feel diverting precious resources and putting people’s lives in danger on your lark. But I’m concerned you haven’t expressed the same respect for the profession that supposedly inspired you to take the trip.” (Via Romenesko.)
No Place Exists That’s Not Worth Writing About
by Tom Swick | 01.12.06 | 6:02 AM ET
I visited Key West for the first time in 1991. I had been in Florida, working as a travel editor, less than two years, and driving with the window down in January to a literary seminar on travel writing seemed a dual blessing. John Malcolm Brinnin—another unjustly forgotten writer—gave a keynote address that I still quote from in travel writing workshops (the hair on my neck never failing to rise). I interviewed Calvin Trillin, who invited me to lunch at the Pier House with Alice. And I interviewed Jan Morris, who impressed me as the most considerate famous person I had ever met. (A role Pico Iyer seems to be filling admirably.) One morning near St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, I ran into Jan power walking down Duval Street. No matter; she stopped to chat. I told her that in my travels I often attended service at the local Anglican church. “You can sometimes meet interesting people there,” I said. She looked doubtful, saying she preferred the company of pagans. And with that she regained her loping stride.
Gawker’s Fake Writer Day Enters Third Day
by Michael Yessis | 01.11.06 | 10:13 PM ET
It’s all over the revelations about James Frey and occasional travel writer JT Leroy. Today, there’s even a poll. Go tell ‘em which fake writer you think will score a made-for-TV movie first.
Should There Be a Support Group for the Spouses of Travel Writers?
by Jim Benning | 01.11.06 | 1:59 PM ET
Some think so. There’s an amusing discussion about it at Travelwriters.com.
Debating ‘What’s Left to Discover and What Should Be Left Undiscovered’
by Tom Swick | 01.11.06 | 6:58 AM ET
Saturday morning I stepped out of my Key West B&B and felt a chilly breeze. I had often thought that I personally brought unseasonable weather to a place (almost never unseasonably good weather) but now I wondered if it was maybe travel writers in general.
A Travel Writer Looks Back at 2005
by Jim Benning | 01.10.06 | 9:02 PM ET
The Chicago Tribune’s Robert Cross reflected on his travels last year—and hip-replacement surgery—in Sunday’s paper.
Reflecting on Key West, Cuba and Whether Misfortune Makes for Great Travel Stories
by Tom Swick | 01.10.06 | 8:03 AM ET
JT Leroy: The Post-Outing Reaction
by Michael Yessis | 01.09.06 | 11:29 PM ET
The New York Times story exposing novelist and travel writer JT Leroy as a woman has stirred up a media brouhaha. New York Magazine issued a press release saying, hey, we had the scoop three months ago.
Welcome Guest Blogger Thomas Swick
by Tom Swick | 01.09.06 | 6:53 AM ET
Regular World Hum readers will be familiar with South Florida Sun-Sentinel travel editor Thomas Swick. We often link to his columns and stories; we’ve interviewed him; and we’ve enjoyed his two books, A Way to See the World: From Texas to Transylvania with a Maverick Traveler and Unquiet Days: At Home in Poland. His 2001 essay in the Columbia Journalism Review, Roads Not Taken, about the dismal state of travel writing in American newspapers, is a must-read for travel writers and editors alike. So when we decided to begin inviting some of our favorite travel writers to be guest bloggers in 2006, Swick’s name immediately came to mind. We’re delighted that he accepted our invitation to contribute all this week.
Pico Iyer, Tom Arnold and the Key West Literary Seminar
by Tom Swick | 01.09.06 | 5:57 AM ET
I’m in Key West; drove down Thursday from Fort Lauderdale for the Key West Literary Seminar on the Literature of Adventure, Travel and Discovery. In the evening Pico Iyer gave the opening address, speaking for 80 minutes without notes and almost without pauses to a packed and dazzled crowd of mostly older citizens. Sketched his story—born in England to Indian parents who then moved to California, currently living in rural Japan—and the themes of his writing—interchange of cultures, traveling for contradictions, travel as a dialogue between a person and a place, an interest in the romance rather than the clash of cultures, etc. Leaving I heard an elderly woman ask her friend, “Did he say he lives in royal Japan?”
JT Leroy Unmasked: He’s a She
by Michael Yessis | 01.08.06 | 5:20 PM ET
He/she is Savannah Knoop, according to a story by Warren St. John posted this afternoon on The New York Times Web site. St. John reports that Knoop plays Leroy in public, but the author of the works attributed to him/her is still unknown. “A photograph of Ms. Knoop at a 2003 opening for a clothing store in San Francisco was discovered online,” St. John writes. “Five intimates of Mr. Leroy’s, including his literary agent, his business manager and the producer of a coming movie based on one of his books, were shown the photograph and identified Ms. Knoop as the person they have known as JT Leroy.”
Where Do American Travel Writers Go When They Die?
by Jim Benning | 01.05.06 | 12:08 AM ET
The South Florida Sun-Sentinel’s Thomas Swick recently penned a column reflecting on his 2005 travels. Among the highlights, he recalled his August visit to the Book Passage Travel Writers & Photographers Conference in Corte Madera, California: “Everyone—faculty, students, bookstore staff—was so well-read, well-traveled, curious, friendly and passionate about the thing I love that I concluded that, if good Americans go to Paris when they die, good American travel writers go to Corte Madera.”
Adam Gopnik, Blogger
by Michael Yessis | 12.19.05 | 9:53 PM ET
