Editor’s note: Travel writer Michael Shapiro is in Corte Madera, California for the annual Book Passage Travel Writers & Photographers Conference, which begins tomorrow. He’s on the conference faculty, and he’ll be writing about the gathering in the coming days for World Hum.
Back in 1992, at the conclusion of the first Book Passage Travel Writers Conference, I walked onto the sun-splashed plaza outside the bookstore. There I saw renowned Welsh author Jan Morris having lunch with (then) San Francisco Examiner Travel Editor Don George and bookstore owner Elaine Petrocelli. One seat remained at their table. After hesitating for a moment, I approached them and stammered, “Do you mind … would it be OK…”

“Sure, of course, please join us,” they said in unison, and a moment later I was sitting at a table for four with the owner of the Bay Area’s top travel bookstore, the editor who published my first travel story, and the legendary Welsh author of such books as “Venice,” “Oxford,” and “The Pax Britannica” trilogy. Not for a moment did they make me feel that I’d intruded. I listened raptly as they discussed their favorite travel literature, and made a mental note to read Apsley Cherry-Garrard’s “The Worst Journey in the World.”

This is par for the course at the annual travel writers conference at Book Passage, a bookstore in Marin County, just north of San Francisco. The seminar attracts about 30 top writers, editors and photographers who teach 100-some “students” in small groups. Among those who have instructed are Pico Iyer, Tim Cahill, Bill Bryson, Arthur Frommer, and Tony and Maureen Wheeler, the founders of Lonely Planet.

Beyond the instruction is the chance to converse casually with these writers, especially at the after hours wine-drinking sessions. One night I sat next to Peter Matthiessen and discussed Jon Krakauer’s “Into Thin Air”; the next I matched Tim Cahill pint for pint (but not shot for shot) as we talked about the thrills and perils of traveling off the tourist track.

This year Cahill will be joined by an all-star lineup including photographers Chris Rainier and Bob Holmes, and authors Jeff Greenwald and Amy Tan. (Not everyone is primarily a travel writer—Isabel Allende has instructed in the past, telling students that if they don’t find a good story on the road they should make one up. “Who will know?!” she exclaimed. In another setting a dentist told Allende he plans to become a novelist after he retires and she quipped: “Oh really, and when I retire I’ll become an oral surgeon!”)

Editors from magazines such as Islands and National Geographic Adventure, and newspaper travel sections such as the San Francisco Chronicle and Los Angeles Times, will teach. Everyone is approachable and students can bounce story ideas off these editors and often land assignments. Larry Habegger, the editor of Travelers’ Tales, says he’s published dozens of writers he first met at Book Passage in his anthologies.

Coming back to Book Passage as a faculty member for the conference has been an annual highlight. And my book, A Sense of Place: Great Travel Writers Talk About Their Craft, Lives, and Inspiration, came to fruition partially through Book Passage and the travel writers conference. The book is a collection of interviews with the world’s leading travel writers where they live: Jan Morris, Bill Bryson, Tim Cahill, Isabel Allende, Simon Winchester, Pico Iyer and many others. Not surprisingly, “A Sense of Place” was published by Travelers’ Tales, thanks to the relationship I developed with Habegger at the travel writers conference.

During four days of writing classes and discussion panels as a student in 1992, I learned more about travel writing than I did in four years of college. But it was that lunch with Jan, Don and Elaine that had the most profound impact. In that moment, by welcoming me to their table, these literary lights said to an aspiring 20-something writer: you belong. Seven years later, in 1999, I was on the faculty of the conference. This Aug. 17-20, I’ll serve on the faculty for the seventh time and will be reporting for World Hum on the literary evenings, which are free and open to the public, and the daily goings-on at the conference.

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.