lavinia spalding

Susan Rich is is the author of three collections of poetry: The Cartographer’s Tongue/Poems of the World, Cures Include Travel, and The Alchemist’s Kitchen. She has received awards from PEN USA, The Times Literary Supplement (London), and Peace Corps Writers.

Bridget Crocker is a contributing author to Lonely Planet guidebooks and the outdoor clothing company, Patagonia. Her work has been featured in National Geographic Adventure, Trail Runner, Paddler, and Outside.

Katherine Jamieson's writing has been published in The New York Times, Washingtonian, Ms., Narrative Magazine, Brevity, and The Best Travel Writing 2011. 

Bonnie Stewart is an educator, writer, and social media researcher whose work won the 2011 Island Literary Award for Creative Non-fiction, and has appeared in CBConline and Salon.com.

Marcia DeSanctis is a journalist and writer whose work has appeared in Vogue, Departures, The New York Times Magazine, Recce, Best Travel Writing 2011 and Town & Country.

Meera Subramanian is a contributor to such publications as The New York Times and Smithsonian, and editor of the online literary magazine Killing the Buddha.

Angie Chuang is a writer and educator based in Washington, D.C. Her work has appeared in Lonely Planet's travel-writing anthology Tales From Nowhere, the Asian American Literary Review, Washingtonian magazine, and other venues. She is on the journalism faculty of American University School of Communication. She was a journalist for thirteen years, as a staff writer for The Oregonian, The Hartford Courant, and the Los Angeles Times. She is working on a nonfiction book manuscript centered on her relationship with an Afghan American immigrant family and travels with them in Afghanistan. She has received residencies at Hedgebrook, Jentel, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and Caldera.

When did you first know you were a traveler?

My first time on a plane was before I turned two, on a trans-Pacific flight to Taiwan. I have no memory of it. I don't ever recall not traveling in some way, whether it was those regular trips to Taiwan every few years (I'm trying to figure out when I even became aware that it was another country -- as far as I was concerned, it was just visiting Grandma and Grandpa) or the two terms I spent at Oxford University (and all over Western Europe) in college.

What’s one place that has moved you or changed you in a significant way?

Of course, Afghanistan would be the obvious answer -- I wrote my Best Women's Travel Writing 2011 essay and an entire book manuscript about it. But beyond that, during my journalism career, my first overseas reporting trip was to Vietnam, to write about a survivor of war and a former prostitute who was returning to the places where the most traumatic parts of her life occurred. Of course, the experience was intense and emotional, but I also remembered the little things that occurred along the way, between the interviews and the reporting. When I requested a vegetarian meal at a streetside noodle stand, the proprietor hopped on a moped and bought me a to-go dish from another restaurant. Floating on my back, buoyant, in the salty South China Sea. Returning three years later and being greeted like an old friend by people I had met the first time around. These traveler's experiences alongside the journalistic storytelling -- they put each other in sharper relief.

Who is the most inspiring or interesting person you’ve met on the road?

I wouldn't even know where to begin here! I've hardly met a person on my travels who wasn't interesting or inspiring in some way. I was particularly moved by the young women I befriended in Afghanistan. Everyone from George W. Bush to Oprah had invoked Afghan women as a symbol since 9/11; I was thrilled to get to know them as real people, and to talk to them about the things women talk about: our futures, our loved ones, and -- of course -- men.

What’s one memorable travel experience you’ve had?

In the Big Horn Mountains of Wyoming, I read Farewell to Arms in the cabin in which Hemingway wrote it. The working ranch was generator-run and all of the power went off every night at 10 p.m. That feeling of utter darkness and quiet, and the book in the light of my lantern, was novel (no pun intended!) and cleansing at the same time.