Meet the Contributors of The Best Women's Travel Writing 2011

The most rewarding part of editing The Best Women's Travel Writing 2011 was getting to know the women behind the stories. Now you can meet them too, in a weekly(-ish) series of interviews. Check back each week or  subscribe to my RSS feed to meet the intrepid women whose stories make up The Best Women's Travel Writing 2011. Learn how they started traveling, who inspires them, where they're headed next, and much more.

Jocelyn Edelstein resides in Portland, Oregon, where she teaches dance, writes, and works on her upcoming documentary film, Believe The Beat, which follows a group of hip-hop dancers from Rio de Janeiro.

Laurie Weed is a freelance writer, editor, and vagabond whose stories have also appeared in The Best Women’s Travel Writing books in 2007 and 2010. She writes for magazines, guidebooks, newspapers, websites and commercial clients.

Marianne Rogoff has had stories published in The Best Travel Writing 2010, The Best Women’s Travel Writing 2008, and The Best Travel Writing 2006, among others. She teaches Writing & Literature at California College of the Arts.

Kasha Rigby has been a member of The North Face Ski Team since 1995. She is one of the few people in the world who has skiied from over 8,000 meters. For almost twenty years, she has traveled at least six months a year. Her writing has also been featured in Women's Adventure Magazine and Ski Magazine.

Meet Best Women's Travel Writing Contributor Jocelyn Edelstein

Jocelyn Edelstein has spent extensive time in Brazil, dancing and working on her upcoming documentary, Believe The Beat, which follows a group of hip-hop dancers from Rio de Janeiro. Aside from the samba of Rio, Jocelyn has explored tango in Buenos Aires and flamenco in Barcelona. She currently resides in Portland, Oregon, where she teaches dance, writes, and works on Believe The Beat. To find out more about what Jocelyn is up to visit her website at www.danceharvest.com or to preview her upcoming documentary visit www.urbanbodyproject.com.

When did you first know you were a traveler?

As a little kid my favorite game involved spreading out my mom’s collection of old National Geographics on the living room floor. I would arrange the pictures as individual islands or countries and proceed to step from picture to picture imagining that I was a part of the photo. I remember my mom commenting once that she had a sneaking suspicion I wanted to be a global citizen. I was nine and didn’t know what she meant at the time, but all these years later it comes back to me and I laugh at her perceptive, motherly premonition.

Full of the Joys of Spring

I'm taking a break from posting interviews with the contributors of The Best Women's Travel Writing 2011 to share some of my own news. It's been a crazy couple of months!

First, I've just about wrapped up The Best Women's Travel Writing Volume 8. It goes to the printer soon and hits bookstores in early summer. A heartfelt THANK YOU to all who submitted stories this year. I read more than three hundred essays to choose the final thirty-two. The stories took me all over the world, from the Antarctic to Zimbabwe, and each one was a joy to read. You women: you're incredible! Keep writing and wandering and reporting back. The world needs your words.

I'm also thrilled to report that The Ghosts of Alamos, a story I wrote for Gadling, won a gold award in the Solas Best Travel Writing Awards. I find this particularly exciting because I've never in my life won a gold anything in anything--not even for making kimchi or throwing knives or building lamps out of chopsticks, all skills I have totally mastered.