Travel Blog: Life of a Travel Writer
“Travel, Travel Writing, and the Literature of Travel”
by Michael Yessis | 09.16.05 | 9:46 AM ET
A few weeks ago, Erin over at BellaOnline recommended to me “Travel, Travel Writing, and the Literature of Travel,” a piece by Michael Mewshaw in the Summer issue of the South Central Review. It’s actually a transcript of a paper Mewshaw gave at a Modern Language Association meeting in New Orleans in October 2004, and it’s a terrific defense of travel and travel writing against critics who dismiss the former as a frivolous diversion and the latter as the work of hacks.
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Yahoo! BuzzTouring “Paris, Paris”
by Jim Benning | 09.12.05 | 4:14 AM ET
Travel writer David Downie is touring the U.S. in support of his new book, Paris, Paris: Journey into the City of Light. The book features a collection of Downie’s stories about the city. He couldn’t have asked for a better review: Jan Morris called it, “Perhaps the most evocative American book about Paris since ‘A Movable Feast.’” Downie will appear in Portland, Oregon on Tuesday and in Seattle on Friday and Saturday. Information about other dates is available here.
Update: The San Francisco Chronicle features a story by Downie about Paris’ Marais district in Sunday’s paper.
Q&As with Peter Moore, Elliott Hester
by Michael Yessis | 09.06.05 | 1:15 AM ET
The San Francisco Chronicle’s John Flinn has an interview with “Continental Drifter” author Elliott Hester in Sunday’s paper, and Rolf Potts recently posted a back-and-forth with Peter Moore, author of “The Wrong Way Home” and other books.
Backpack Nation Closes
by Jim Benning | 08.30.05 | 5:09 PM ET
Travel writer Brad Newsham has announced that he is shuttering Backpack Nation, the organization he founded on Sept. 11, 2002 to spread money and goodwill around the globe. “Today Backpack Nation consists mostly of me sitting here tapping at a keyboard—and not even so much of that any more,” he wrote in an e-mail to supporters. “I’ve proven to my own complete satisfaction that creating an organization is neither my strong-suit or my passion. And I’m letting go of that self-chosen responsibility.”
Travel Writer Taken to Task Over a Cheeto
by Michael Yessis | 08.29.05 | 12:38 AM ET
At .6 ounces, though, it’s a really big Cheeto. But is it the world’s biggest? That’s the $.89 question. Chicago Tribune writer Mike Conklin ventured to Sister Sarah’s Restaurant in Algona, Iowa, and wrote a short piece about the famed roadside attraction. In his piece, he did some math to put the size of the Cheeto into perspective, and that’s where he ran into problems with Edward B. Colby of CJR Daily, the online publication of the Columbia Journalism Review.
Travel Editor’s Shocking Confession: “I Haven’t Been Everywhere”
by Jim Benning | 08.21.05 | 7:55 PM ET
The stunning tell-all comes in a column today by Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Travel Editor David Bear. “I hope this revelation doesn’t come as a shock,” he writes, “but I haven’t been everywhere.” And there’s more: “People often ask me for suggestions about good hotels and restaurants in cities they’ll be visiting, and so many of them seem surprised when a travel editor pleads ignorance simply because he’s never been there.” It’s a terrible fall from grace for a travel editor who, to so many of us, seemed to have been absolutely everywhere. There’s more to the column, but we couldn’t bring ourselves to read it. What might Bear reveal next? That he has yet to summit K2 without oxygen? That he’s never studied Sanskrit in Delhi? That the jungle enclaves of Chiapas rebels are generally unfamiliar to him? No, we’d read quite enough, thank you.
Travel Summit in Iceland
by Jim Benning | 08.20.05 | 2:44 PM ET
While we’re on the subject of travel writing and photography conferences, the Icelandic Geographic Travel Summit, which takes place Sept. 8-10 in Reykjavik and bills itself as the “coolest travel summit on the planet,” has assembled plenty of star power. Among those scheduled to speak: Bill Bryson, Tim Cahill, Lonely Planet’s Tony and Maureen Wheeler, and Keith Bellows of National Geographic Traveler.
Talking Travel Writing at Book Passage
by Jim Benning | 08.20.05 | 1:49 PM ET
Jen Leo has posted a report and photos from the Book Passage Travel Writers & Photographers Conference, which is taking place this weekend in Northern California. Tim Cahill and Simon Winchester are among those on the faculty.
“Travel Writer Rick Steves is a Long-Standing Nation Reader”
by Jim Benning | 08.20.05 | 12:32 AM ET
Travel writers usually don’t have enough celebrity cache to be featured in advertisements, but a full-page ad in the July 11 issue of The Nation features a bespectacled Rick Steves reading a copy of the magazine. The caption: “Travel writer Rick Steves is a long-standing Nation reader.” Steves, as we’ve noted before, has often mixed politics and travel.
Freelancers, Travel and The New York Times
by Jim Benning | 08.19.05 | 6:18 PM ET
A number of freelance travel writers are miffed about a column in Sunday’s New York Times by Public Editor Byron Calame. Calame points out that bylines of stories written by freelancers in The Times Travel section look no different from those written by staff writers. Because it’s difficult for editors to monitor the ethical and reporting standards of freelancers, Calame writes, “readers deserve to know whether a freelancer or a staffer provides the content.” Many newspapers make a distinction, of course: Bylines of stories written by freelancers in the Los Angeles Times, for example, carry the phrase “Special to the Times” as opposed to “Times Staff Writer.”
Q-and-A With Bill Bryson
by Michael Yessis | 08.15.05 | 11:05 PM ET
Yesterday’s Washington Post featured an interview with “Walk in the Woods” author Bill Bryson. What’s he up to? “I’m doing a book which is a kind of travel book,” he tells K.C. Summers, “except that it’s a memoir about growing up in the ‘50s in Iowa.” Go with it, Bill. We’re with you.
Arthur Frommer: “I Hated the Jingoism”
by Jim Benning | 08.10.05 | 10:06 AM ET
Guidebook author Arthur Frommer is featured in a short profile in The Seattle Times. The piece covers some interesting ground, including Frommer’s non travel-related books (among them, “The Bible and the Public Schools,” in which he argued against compulsory Bible reading in schools), and his unorthodox guidebook to Branson, Missouri. “It’s the only guidebook in history,” he said, “that tells the reader, in effect, do not go!”
Q&A with Taras Grescoe
by Jim Benning | 08.05.05 | 9:43 PM ET
Rolf Potts has posted an interview with Taras Grescoe, author of a couple of books, including The End of Elsewhere: Travels Among the Tourists. Grescoe offered warnings and advice for would-be travel writers: “Travel is addictive. People will never offer any sympathy when you complain about how tired you are of traveling. Your circle of friends will grow, but they will be scattered all over the earth, and you will never be able to get them in the same room for a party. And if you don’t watch out, you may become the unbearably pretentious possessor of a spurious cosmopolitanism. Allow your friends to bring you back down to earth.”
“We’re Salesmen, Aren’t We?”
by Michael Yessis | 08.03.05 | 9:43 PM ET
“Let Your Passions Guide You. They Are Unique…Let Them Subsume You.”
by Jim Benning | 07.27.05 | 11:38 AM ET
That was the message that writer Jeffrey Tayler delivered to students enrolled in Rolf Potts’ writing course in Paris earlier this month. His lecture has been published on Potts’ weblog, and aspiring writers and fans of Tayler’s work will find it both inspiring and instructive.
In addition to offering advice, Tayler recounts his own path to the writing life, emphasizing the importance that passions played along the way. “I mean passions for subjects that fascinate and thrill you the way a good novel or poem or even movie does,” he told them. “These passions drove me to acquire knowledge and accomplish the things I would write about. Most of all, they focused my energy.” Tayler, of course, is an Atlantic Monthly correspondent and the author of a number of books, including “Facing the Congo” and his latest, Angry Wind: Through Muslim Black Africa by Truck, Bus, Boat and Camel.
