“Let Your Passions Guide You. They Are Unique…Let Them Subsume You.”
Travel Blog • 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.
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Jim Benning is the editor and co-founder of World Hum.
