Editor’s note: Travel writer Michael Shapiro just attended the annual Book Passage Travel Writers & Photographers Conference in Corte Madera, California. He was on the conference faculty and is writing about the gathering for World Hum.
Almost every city and town in Europe and Latin America has a central square. Call it a plaza, zocalo, or village green, it’s a place where people gather, swap stories, and connect with one another. Most North American cities lack these central gathering spots, but Corte Madera, a town just north of San Francisco at the foot of Mount
Tamalpais, has a piazza in the most unlikely of places.

Corte Madera’s “piazza” runs alongside Book Passage, the bookstore that hosted last weekend’s Travel Writers & Photographers Conference. Over the course of four days, 140 aspiring writers and photographers mingled with 25 or so top travel writers, editors and photographers on this piazza. The annual seminar is intensive and packed with courses, but some of the most memorable conversations occur every year on the piazza.

During the first full day of the conference, a dozen or so “faculty” writers and editors met on the piazza with small groups of students. I had the pleasure of sharing a table with Christine Richard, the executive editor of Islands magazine, and five students. Christine advised students to include characters and dialogue in their travel stories and to engage all the senses. In other words, don’t say that a place is beautiful—show us its beauty. Whether it’s the scent of plumeria or the taste of Venetian gelato, sensory details enliven a story.

The plaza cleared just before dinner when J. Maarten Troost and Tony Cohan took the stage in the bookstore’s event room. Troost, the author of “Sex Lives of Cannibals,” returns to the South Pacific in “Getting Stoned with Savages.” This time he goes to Vanuatu to live on a tiny island called Tarawa that has no bathrooms. “There’s just a beach – you have pristine scenery with such a stench,” he said. “You run with that.”

Troost was mystified that dissatisfaction with the “incredibly corrupt government never spills into something more serious.” But after a little time on Vanuatu, Troost discovered the reason for the islanders’ complacency. It’s not the sun or the sand—it’s the kava. “It’s like the heroin of the kava world,” he said. “Every evening the entire population of Vanuatu is stoned out of their minds.”

Troost said he’s motivated mainly by deadlines, and usually starts picking up his pace when he’s a month or two past his due date. Though now an accomplished writer, he finds writing painful. A student asked how he deals with the pain. Troost had a one-word answer: “Kava.”

Cohan, the author of “On Mexican Time,” has a new book called “Mexican Days.” He assured the students that even in today’s modern world, where Lonely Planet is guiding travelers to the ends of the earth, there’s still plenty to discover. Even in Mexico, our next-door neighbor, he observed, there are plenty of remote and undiscovered places. “I’m astounded by how little we know about (Mexico),” Cohan said.

But in a world where far-flung travel is common, Cohan said it’s important to do more than describe a place. Being a North American in Mexico sets the stage for cross-cultural interpretation, he said. “That’s where travel writing resides.” Asked how he knows when he’s finished writing a book, he cited Faulkner and said
books are never finished, just abandoned. “There’s a time when you just can’t go back” and keep revising the work,” he said. “That’s when it’s time to wrap it up.”

Both authors were succinct in discussing the makings of a good travel tale. “It’s the writing, not the travel,” Troost said, echoing Tim Cahill’s point that it’s easy to have a great travel experience, but it takes years to develop the skill to craft a fine travel story. Asked for more tips, Troost demurred and told the group of aspiring writers: “We don’t want more competition anyway.”

As the sun set behind Mount Tamalpais, students and faculty alike streamed out onto the piazza to chat, sip Italian soda and reflect on the day.

Michael Shapiro wrote a cover story entitled “Land Beyond Time” about Wales for the May-June issue of National Geographic Traveler. He’s also written recent stories for Islands about Kauai and Chiefs Island in Botswana’s Okavango Delta. His work also appears in the New York Times, Washington Post and San Francisco Chronicle. Shapiro’s book, A Sense of Place: Great Travel Writers Talk About Their Craft, Lives, and Inspiration, is a collection of 18 interviews with the world’s leading travel writers, conducted where they live.

Photo: J. Maarten Troost (left) and Tony Cohan at the Book Passage book-signing table. (Michael Shapiro)