lavinia spalding

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

2012-01-27T16:15:00.000-08:00

The most rewarding part of editing The Best Women's Travel Writing 2011 was getting to know the women behind the stories. And now you can meet them too, in a weekly series of interviews. Check back each week or subscribe to my RSS feed to meet the inspiring, 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.

Abbie Kozolchyk has contributed to National Geographic Traveler, Travel + Leisure, the San Francisco Chronicle, Outside, World Hum, Concierge.com, Forbes Traveler, Travelers' Tales, and numerous women's magazines.

Anna Wexler is a freelance writer and filmmaker based in Tel Aviv whose work has appeared in a number of print and online publications, including Maxim, 18, Glimpse, Budget Travel, and Mir Afishu.

Marcy Gordon's writing has appeared in many Travelers’ Tales anthologies. She is the editor of Leave the Lipstick, Take the Iguana: Funny Travel Stories from the Road (spring, 2012) and writes Come For the Wine, a popular blog.

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.

Meet Best Women's Travel Writing Contributor Abbie Kozolchyk

2012-01-27T16:00:00.000-08:00

Abbie Kozolchyk, a New York-based writer and editor, has contributed to National Geographic Traveler, Travel + Leisure, the San Francisco Chronicle, Outside, World Hum, Concierge.com, Forbes Traveler, Travelers' Tales, and a variety of women's magazines. Visit her at www.abbiekozolchyk.com.

When did you first know you were a traveler?

I suspect that even in utero, I kind of knew. My parents were living in Costa Rica at the time—and roaming around Central America throughout my mom’s pregnancy. I think the sensation just sort of
stuck, and I never grew out of that motion-as-comfort stage.

Is there something you always do, whenever you’re on a trip?

Weirdly, I’ve managed to ritualize Pringles consumption on the road. Though I never eat—or even crave—them at home, I seem to down a can the second I clear immigration and customs in a new country. And I’m still trying to work out how a vastly unremarkable can of chips has become such a travel totem for me. Do I have some bizarre need to confirm (again, and again, and again) that yes, Pringles are indeed the great unifier of snack foods—and really do taste exactly the same wherever you go in the world, regardless of the language(s) on the packaging? Or do the chips serve as some sort of carb-y, American security blanket for me—easing any subconscious homesickness I may have? Who knows? All I do know is that even when they cost as much as the hotel room itself, they’re not long for the minibar. I give them one minute post-check-in, tops.

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

Winding up on a ship in Antarctica with a guy whom I hadn’t seen in, oh, 33 years. Not that we had any idea as we were sailing around the bottom of the planet that we’d ever met before. Only after the fact, when I was telling my mom about the people on the trip, did she ask, “Wait, WHAT did you just say the ship’s doctor’s name was?!” Turns out he and I had played together as babies—and I could clearly picture one of the shots my mom had taken of us as soon as she described it to me. Of course, I then had to call him and say, “Are you sitting down for this?”

What’s on your list of future destinations?

I’m desperate to travel with my dad to his hometown of Havana. Cuba has always been this odd phantom limb in our family life, and though there would appear to be a pretty obvious remedy, here’s the thing: like a lot of people who left in the late 50s—including the majority of our extended clan—my father is ambivalent (at best) about going back. Still, my siblings and I have been working on him for years, and, you know... hope springs eternal.

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

There have been too many to choose just one. But if I had to, I’d say Taher, a baggage handler in the Mumbai airport. My friend Lon and I had arranged to meet up in the international terminal late one night—each of us arriving from a different country—then catch a flight together in the miles-away domestic terminal. Though I did love the sensory- and humanity-overload that was the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport, our grand plans were no match for it—and totally failed (this was the Pre-iPhone Era). So I was standing around, evidently looking dazed and confused, when a tall, skinny kid in an airport jumpsuit came up to me and asked what was wrong.

At first I took the “oh, it’s too complicated” tack, but he insisted I try to explain. As soon as I did, he grabbed my luggage, shepherded me to the appropriate gate, checked me in, deposited me at a nearby
café, and told me to wait there. Absent a better plan of my own, I obeyed, having no idea what he was going to do next.

An hour or so later, I heard a knock on the window and looked up. There was Lon, smiling and waving at me, a thoroughly satisfied-looking Taher by her side. I tried hard not to burst into tears of joy. No such luck.

Turns out, he’d gone back to search the international terminal, spotted a blonde, and asked, “Are you Abbie’s friend?” In fact, she was. “I know your situation,” he said. “Come with me.” So she did. And
there we were.

Unable to get over what he’d just done for us, and unsure of how to thank him (our incessant gushing aside), we tried to hand him a pile of cash—but he wouldn’t accept. He seemed almost offended as he
explained that his gesture had been “for friendship.” So we tried again. And again, he refused on the basis of friendship.

Though I know “the kindness of strangers” is hugely clichéd in travel writing circles, I’m sorry: There really is nothing like it. Nor is there any better poster child for it than Taher. To this day, Lon and
I (who did, for the record, finally shove the cash into his breast pocket) will toast to him, always adding, “I know your situation.”

What advice can you give to women who want to start traveling?

Even when you can’t find anyone to go with you—and sometimes, especially when you can’t find anyone to go with you—go. The trip is still eminently worth taking.

How do you balance your home and travel life?

What is this balance you speak of?

Meet Best Women's Travel Writing Contributor Anna Wexler

2012-01-15T11:14:00.000-08:00

Anna Wexler is a writer, documentary filmmaker, and adventure traveler whose trip ideas are a continual source of concern for her friends and family. She has yet to top the solo bicycle ride across Mexico, but volcano boarding in Nicaragua, motorcycling through northern Vietnam, and seal hunting in Greenland all came pretty close. When Wexler isn’t on the road, she writes about science, travel, and food from her sea view desk in Tel Aviv. Her work has appeared in a number of print and online publications, including Maxim, 18, Glimpse, Budget Travel, and Mir Afishu, and the books A Stingray Bit My Nipple: True Stories from Real Travelers, and It All Changed in an Instant: More Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous & Obscure. Visit her at www.annawexler.com

In what ways does writing inform your relationship with travel? Do you keep a journal? Conduct interviews? Write on location?

I try not to think about the story while I’m traveling. That being said, if I feel like a given experience will make a good story, I try to take notes as soon as possible. The tiny details only stick in my head for a few days, but once I have those notes, I can structure the story months or even years later.

Is there something you always do whenever you’re on a trip?

I love browsing grocery and convenience stores. I always try to buy a few strange looking snacks, just to see what the locals eat.

What advice can you give to women who want to start traveling?

Don’t hold out for your friend to join you – go alone! My craziest adventures have come from solo travel.

Also, whenever any of my friends goes through a rough breakup, I recommend “Wexler therapy,” which consists of purchasing a cheap last-minute plane ticket to a country that you haven’t visited before. No planning or research allowed. That way, when you’re standing in the middle of Bucharest and you have no idea how to get around, what to eat, or where to sleep, you’re going to be thinking about Bucharest and not about your ex.

What’s one important lesson you’ve learned from your travels?

If you’re traveling with another person, make sure to take frequent breaks. That way, instead of the dreaded dinner silence (yes, it happens to the best of us) you can regale each other with tales of your day’s adventures. Plus, when you go solo you’re more likely to meet new people, which is one of the most interesting aspects of travel!

Do you think women and men approach travel—or travel writing—differently? How does being a woman affect the way you travel or experience the world?

A solo woman is perceived as unthreatening and harmless, so in that sense, being a female traveler has definitely opened doors. On the flipside, though, in many countries a lone female is perceived as loose, or openly desiring of sex. In these places, we solo ladies are often subjected to a fair amount of hassle: ogling, incessant staring, catcalls, whistling, and vulgar comments. While the “hassle factor” hasn’t put me off completely from traveling to a new place, it’s certainly something I take into consideration before booking my flight.

What’s on your list of future destinations?

Shh. That’s a secret.

In your opinion, what is the greatest reward of traveling?

Travel gives me perspective. Whenever I need clarity, or need to take a step back and wonder if I’m on the right path in life, I travel.

Meet Best Women's Travel Writing Contributor Marcy Gordon

2012-01-02T00:01:00.000-08:00

Marcy Gordon’s narrative travel writing has appeared online for World Hum and in print in many Travelers’ Tales anthologies including The Best Women’s Travel Writing 2011 and 2010. She worked for The Touring Club of Italy, where she was contributing editor and co-designer of the Authentic Italy guidebook series. She will be the editor for Leave the Lipstick, Take the Iguana: Funny Travel Stories from the Road - due out from Travelers' Tales in 2012. She writes Come for the Wine, a popular blog about wine and wine tourism destinations around the world. Visit www.comeforthewine.com for more information or follow her on Twitter @marcygordon.

When did you first know you were a traveler?

I’ve never considered that question before. Being a traveler was not an option, I was born to it, just like my eyes are blue. Travel was thrust upon me by my adventure-seeking-travel-writer mother. I took travel for granted and thought it was an ordinary part of everyone’s life. Now I have come to understand that travel is an essential element my body needs to survive, like eight glasses of water a day. It's a thirst that must be quenched or I dehydrate, turn to dust, and disintegrate.

Is there something you always do (or search out, buy, learn, pack, drink), whenever you’re on a trip?

I try to learn basic polite conversational phrases and numbers from 1-100 in the language of the place I am visiting. I like to bring along books to read featuring the location or seek out works by local authors in the bookstores. I love to browse around in grocery stores and pharmacies looking at all the foreign brands and unusual items. I like to find a local wine shop and drink the local wine. I always bring my now famous pair of novelty store gag glasses and cajole the people I meet to put them on, and then I take their picture. (This usually occurs after finding the local wine shop!)

Through travel, have you overcome any fears or obstacles?

After life-saving emergency surgery and spending eight days in an Italian hospital, I learned to let go of outcome. Now I just let the situation unfold and I no longer fear dying. Travel has taught me you can't control everything. The minute I set foot in the airport I accept that pretty much everything is out of my control, so I just relax and go with it. But I must admit I do still fear getting stuck on the tarmac for 8 hours!

What’s on your list of future destinations?

In the next 6 months: Croatia, Italy, France, Spain, New Zealand, Okanagan/Penticton in Alberta, Canada, Portland, OR and Mendocino, CA.

In your opinion, what is the greatest reward of traveling?

Getting out of routine and into the great unknown. That feeling of being untethered to any expectations is a great reward. I have more patience when I travel and less worry. For me, travel is like a great big kaleidoscope filled with people and places, tastes and colors and cultures, all mixed up in a magnificent pattern that keeps shifting and turning to reveal the most extraordinary details. And through this kaleidoscope I gain the ability to focus in on the moment, and that in itself is a great gift.

Meet Best Women's Travel Writing Contributor Susan Rich

2011-12-16T22:14:00.000-08:00

Susan Rich 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. Her fellowships include an Artists Trust Fellowship from Washington State and a Fulbright Fellowship to South Africa. She serves on the boards of Crab Creek Review, Floating Bridge Press and Whit Press. Rich has received residencies from Hedgebrook, Tyrone Guthrie Center (Ireland), Ucross Foundation, and Fundacion Valparaiso (Spain). Recent poems have appeared in the Antioch Review, Harvard Review, Poetry International and TriQuarterly. Born in Brookline, Massachusetts, she now makes her home in Seattle, WA where she teaches English and Film Studies at Highline Community College. Visit her at www.susanrich.net

When did you first know you were a traveler?

I think it was the postage stamps. The bright colors of the women on the stamps from Fiji mesmerized me. The stamps from countries such as the Cook Islands or Mauritania -- beautiful words that conjured up worlds I could barely imagine. I loved the smell of those stamps and the postcards and envelopes they so often arrived on. I loved the stores (do these stores still exist?) that sold nothing but cellophane packages with stamps from every corner of the globe. I sought to enter that stamp and mail myself clear across continents. On my first trip to Africa, it felt as if I were doing exactly that: traveling by virtue of imagination to a newfound place — one that had previously existed only in my stamp album.

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

I was invited to Palestine to teach human rights education to teachers and lawyers in 1995, it was after the Oslo Accords and things were hopeful in that moment. During my ten-day stay I not only taught human rights but was invited to a wedding, received a marriage proposal, and learned firsthand that there are very few differences between Arabs and Jews. It was a short trip, but one that changed my life. As a Jewish American, I had been taught to fear Arabs in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. Yet on this trip I was treated with more respect and honored in a way that has never happened before or since. I also had a great deal of fun.

Is there something you always do (or search out, buy, learn, pack, drink), whenever you’re on a trip?

The botanical gardens is my touchstone for every place I visit. I also believe (when possible) in packing a favorite coffee cup.

Through travel, have you overcome any fears or obstacles?

At heart, I think of myself as a shy worrier. However, when I mention this description to friends, they laugh at me. I’ve conducted human rights work in the West Bank and been an electoral supervisor in Bosnia. I’ve heard bullets whiz past my ears and spent an evening drinking tea with nomadic men on the edge of the Sahara. In South Africa, I lived alone in the country that statistically is known as the murder and rape capital of the world. It’s a mystery to me how these experiences started to accrue. And yet, they have and I’ve become braver for them.

As travelers, we spin ourselves around the globe with only a credit card and a passport for protection. And more often than not, the experiences that come to us are positive ones. In all of my decades of travel, I can think of only one time when things were actually dangerous (and it wasn’t in a war zone). So yes, travel has allowed me to privilege curiosity over fear, adventure over worry. I can’t imagine who I would be without my years of traveling to and living in different countries. So although I still worry about having to ask a stranger for directions and I still obsess about keeping my travel documents safe; I now know the joy of travel so far outweighs the problems.

What advice can you give to women who want to start traveling?

Do it. Don’t let the voice inside your head dictate or limit your life experiences. Whenever I go somewhere I make sure that there are places or people where I can land. Plan to do more than sightsee. As a writer, these places are often writing retreats or visiting writer friends, but that’s only one way to go. If there is a painting you’ve always wanted to see, you could create a trip around visiting that painting-- or perhaps there is a famous restaurant in Spain you’ve always wanted to try. We live our lives only once. One. That’s not a very big number. I’d hate to miss anything because of my own self-imposed fears.

I am not a brave woman, but I have had travel experiences that have taught me to be braver. The challenges I’ve overcome as a traveler have translated into the skills I need to live my everyday life.

What’s on your list of future destinations?

I’ve always wanted to travel to India, but this isn’t a trip I can do without a lot of time and planning. There is a hotel in Karola, in the South of India. that transforms into a writing residency during the monsoon season; spending time there is high on my list. I’m fond of the word fjords, so I’d love to visit any of the Scandinavian countries. I also am very fond of returning to countries where I’ve been before. I was in Ireland this summer for my third time, but I’m already working on going again. Travel and return; that might be my motto.

Speaking with Rolf Potts about Travel, Writing, and All Things Super

2011-12-15T01:29:00.000-08:00

I'm taking a short commercial break from posting interviews with my BWTW11 contributors to share some exciting news: I'm honored to be this month's featured travel writer interviewed by the amazing Rolf Potts!

How did you get started traveling?

The summer after I turned ten, my parents moved my family from New Hampshire to Arizona. We spent three weeks driving cross-country in a yellow 1965 school bus converted into a camper named "Gillie Rom," or "Song of the Road" in Romany, the Gypsy language. We stayed at KOAs, crashed at friends' homes, and got ourselves into all manner of family shenanigans. One night my father jimmied the lock on a rental paddleboat at a KOA, and we all floated along on a moonlit lake while he serenaded us with his classical guitar. That trip awakened in me a pivotal realization that the road was a mysterious place where anything could happen.

How did you get started writing?

From the time I was five, it was clear I'd either be a guitarist or a writer. I wrote in my journal constantly, and my idol was Harriet the Spy because she too scribbled in her diary nonstop. At the age of ten I started writing a novel called Lenny, Jenny, and Me, a tragicomedy about three siblings (Lenny, Jenny, and Penny), whose names rhymed because their parents—unlike my own—were not very bright. It was really terrible, but I wrote hundreds of pages. When I quit playing guitar at the age of thirteen, I knew from that point on that I'd be a writer; I never even considered another path.

Read the rest of the interview here.

Meet Best Women's Travel Writing 2011 Contributor Bridget Crocker

2011-12-01T20:10:00.000-08:00

Born near the Pacific Ocean and raised on the banks of Wyoming’s Snake River, Bridget Crocker is an outdoor travel writer, adventure guide and mother. She is a contributing author to Lonely Planet guidebooks and the outdoor clothing company, Patagonia, and her work has been featured in magazines including National Geographic Adventure, Trail Runner, Paddler and Outside. She lives on the edge of the continent in Southern California with her husband and two daughters. Visit www.bridgetcrocker.com for more on her adventures and writing.

When did you first know you were a traveler?

As a kid, I outfitted my closet with glossy pages ripped out of National Geographic; I spent hours crouched on the floor listening to Simon and Garfunkel records, plotting my getaway to the Serengeti. At twenty, I landed a job guiding on the Lower Zambezi River and, after the season was over, embarked on a three-day train ride from Zambia to Tanzania for the wildebeest migration. Hanging off the back of the train car watching the great herds trample the savanna, I knew I was a traveler – the tears of amazement on my cheeks confirmed it.

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

On the way to the put-in for an exploratory run down Peru’s Tambopata River (headwater tributary of the Amazon), our rig broke down, putting us way behind schedule. Our group stopped at a hole-in-the-wall roadside café at two in the morning. We were able to eat and get a couple of rooms for the night, which were occupied by the trip’s paying clients. We guides were accommodated in the back - adjacent to the latrine was a makeshift disco, complete with mirrored ball and laser lights, which the management thought we would appreciate having on while sleeping. Not only did the lights keep us up, but they illuminated the bats grazing our sleeping bags throughout the night. We all got chiggers, which lingered the rest of the eighteen-day trip. The “bat disco,” as it came to be known, was a small precursor to the epic journey awaiting us, wherein I got dysentery, we were shot at by cocaine farmers, and the water was so low we were days behind and nearly missed our take-out connection.

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

I had an experience in Assam, India at the Kamakyha Temple where I was confronted with having to be very clear about my calling, or path. The temple is built on top of a cave with a spring, and it's believed that if you reach your hand into the spring and wish for your deepest desire, it will come true. Standing there in front of the spring, with my hand in the water and one chance, I had to get really honest really fast about defining my deepest desire; something that I had danced around and gone to the ends of the earth to discover. There, in the hidden shroud of the cave, I wished to be a mother and create a family with my husband. Within a year and a half, we were married and expecting our first child.

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

In the early nineties, I guided a trip down Ethiopia’s Omo River and shared the journey with a fourth generation Ethiopian of Italian descent. I was fascinated by him: he spoke Italian, Amharic, and English interchangeably and introduced me to an enclave of Italians living within Ethiopia. I may have guided him down the river, but he guided me through an intricate and largely hidden pocket of Ethiopian culture that was completely riveting.

Is there something you always do, whenever you’re on a trip?

I always bring a “get-out-of-jail” card with me and have it on my person with my passport. Basically, it’s a compilation of contact info for the American embassy, in-country airline offices, anybody I know in that region, or anyone remotely connected through friends. If I have to pull the cord for any reason, I have options on-the-ready. I also learn how to say “please,” “thank you” and “hello” in the local language, which is far more effective than my get-out-of-jail card.

What’s on your list of future destinations?

I’ve been on a bit of a traveling bender this summer with my girls, so I’m looking forward to being home for dive season and updating my blog, The Adventures of Little Mama (http://bridgetcrocker.wordpress.com ), with stories from our summer trips to Montana and Maine. I am still itching to go to Belize to dive the Blue Hole and go underground cave rafting through the Mayan Mountains.

Meet Best Women's Travel Writing Contributor Bonnie Stewart

2011-11-23T18:19:00.000-08:00

Bonnie Stewart is an educator, writer, and social media researcher with a penchant for jellybeans. On her blog, crib chronicles, and in her academic work, Bonnie writes about not looking away. Mother to Oscar and Posey, and to the memory of Finn, Bonnie has lived on all three coasts of Canada and in Asia and Europe. She has, however, achieved the Nirvana of her people and come home to the red mud of Prince Edward Island without having to work in the Anne of Green Gables industry. Her roots in the tightly networked habitat of PEI inform her doctoral studies in social media communities, connections, and branded identity. Her work won the 2011 Island Literary Award for Creative Non-fiction and has appeared in CBConline and Salon.com. Her life’s goal is to be on Celebrity Jeopardy.

When did you first know you were a traveler?
I “knew” I was a traveler long before I traveled, though of course I didn't end up being quite the kind of traveler I thought I'd be. Before I'd been anywhere, I thought of travel as exotic immersion; I spent a great deal of my adolescence fascinated by the idea of Elsewhere, of Anywhere but Here. Yet when I finally gathered the resources to unhinge myself from the provincial mundanity of the known, I was surprised – and somewhat dismayed – to find that everywhere has its provincialism. The secret, wherever you are, is to stop looking at the world through its lens. I think I became a traveler in the best sense of the word when I began to look at the world – all of it, even the familiar bits – with curiosity and empathy and the expectation of stories.

What’s one place that has moved you or changed you in a significant way?
The Canadian Arctic. It was the first place in which I ever felt truly Other, and in which I came face to face with the legacies of colonialism and cultural history that permeate travel. I stayed a long time, and it taught me a lot about humility and relativism and my own privilege, and the folly of ever believing you fully understand what it is to be in another's skin. The expanse of space there, the vulnerability of realizing that if you were to walk out into it you could go a thousand miles before ever meeting another human, is breathtaking. The North taught me that we are all different, and all inter-reliant, at the same time.

In what ways does writing inform your relationship with travel? Do you keep a journal? Conduct interviews? Write on location?
Over the last few years, especially since I began blogging, my journal-writing has dwindled. I still have a big, black-bound artist's sketchbook: the writing inside is still all-caps print, the aesthetic signature I developed for myself back in the days when I still considered my handwriting a part of my identity. But the current sketchbook – number thirteen or so in a long lineage – only sees the light of day these days when I travel. Especially alone. I love to travel alone, to play flaneur in an unfamiliar city. But writing is what keeps traveling alone from being lonely, for me. My journal is my companion when I'm stuck in an airport, or want to take up a table by myself in a pub without looking like I've been stood up. Writing is conversational: it allows me to dig in and reflect on what I've been seeing and how that changes what I've seen before.

What’s on your list of future destinations?
There are still a few city names that ring mythic to me. Kathmandu, and Jerusalem, and – though closer to home, still bound in so much symbolism – New Orleans. I'd also like to spend some time in Sicily: the architectural and historical amalgam of Greek and Roman and Byzantine and Moorish and Norman influences makes me drool.

In your opinion, what is the greatest reward of traveling?
Perspective. It's all too easy to live your life as if the life your know is the only life possible, because it's what you see, day in and day out. Travel shifts that perspective. Sometimes, it serves to remind you how grateful you are for your daily grind. Sometimes, it busts open your comfortable assumptions and changes the way you see other people and their practices, forever. Sometimes, it teaches you to change your own practices, because – reflected in the eyes of others you encounter – they don't appear quite so innocuous as you thought. Travel's greatest reward, for me, is that I come home different, altered, a little more able to see.

Meet Best Women's Travel Writing Contributor Katherine Jamieson

2011-11-15T13:13:00.000-08:00

Katherine Jamieson is a graduate of the Iowa Nonfiction Writing Program, and her writing has been published in The New York Times, Washingtonian, Ms., Narrative Magazine, and Brevity. In addition to her essay in BWTW 2011, she had two pieces anthologized in The Best Travel Writing 2011. In order to maximize traveling options, she now teaches literature and writing online at colleges around the US. Visit her at www.katherinejamieson.com

When did you first know you were a traveler?

In 1994 I took a trip to Eastern Europe while I was studying in Paris for a semester in college. The trend of young Americans traipsing through Prague and Budapest was nascent, and the references to Poland and Bulgaria in our Let’s Go Europe! scant. In fact, the only advice anyone had for us was to bring toilet paper and try not to get robbed. The Gypsies were rumored to have elaborate methods for fleecing tourists, including tossing their babies at unwitting travelers; presumably when you dove to rescue the falling infant, they grabbed your bags and cash. No one ever said what happened to the baby after that.

In any case, after a few days of travel with stale baguettes and Camembert, my friend Julie and I landed in Krakow’s train station at about midnight. Menacing men smoked and glowered at us from every bench and corner. It was dank, grim, un-gilded, and all-around Communist. I loved it. We spent two weeks traversing the region by train, and our adventures were epic, if only to us: being arrested by an off-duty, drunk Czech cop, doing shots of viscous, burning Becherovka in underground clubs, wandering for hours through an overgrown concentration camp. I’d grown up hearing the mangled aphorism “nothing ventured, nothing lost,” and it had come to permeate my way of thinking more than I realized. Eastern Europe broke this open for me; it became the inspiration for my wanderlust for many years.

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

I was in the Peace Corps in Guyana, and it is this place that I return to most in my writing, both fiction and nonfiction. Volunteers tend to hate questions about their “vacations” when they return from two years of living and working abroad, so there’s some irony to my writing falling in the “travel writing” category. My time in Guyana was actually about figuring out how to live there, a place where most people do not choose to travel, or live, at all. In fact, one of the country’s challenges is a declining population; there are more Guyanese living outside of the country, in the US and Canada, than in it.

In any case, it's a rigorous place, a tropical country of incredible heat, pounding rains, immense undergrowth. Mosquitoes are constant; malaria, and a number of other tropical diseases, endemic. Poverty is widespread and grinding, and the need—for education, health care, clean water—is overwhelming. And yet, it is my touchstone landscape. The smells, tastes, and sounds are as available to me now, 15 years later, as those of my current home. I think Guyana’s impact on me was so strong because it felt like the first time I had been forced to slow down in my life. There was really nothing to “do” there in the traditional sense: no place to go, nothing to see. Guyana was about hard work and surviving the elements; there was no energy for ambition. And this allowed me the freedom to quiet down and observe the world around me, perhaps more than I ever had before. In time, it became imperative to write down these observations. I had imagined becoming a writer before I went there, but Guyana made me a writer.

Is there something you always do, whenever you’re on a trip?

Whenever I’m traveling, I seek out local supermarkets. I think it’s fascinating how common things are sold for different purposes around the world: bags of rice for dog food in Trinidad, cow’s face for making soup in Guyana, or tomatoes to be eaten like peaches in Czech Republic. You can also tell a lot about a country by reading through their greeting cards; they’re like this arcane little window into the humor and sentimentality of a culture.

I’ve worked in holistic health, so I'm always interested in what kinds of herbal or alternative products are being sold internationally that aren’t available in the US. My great find was an amazing homeopathic apothecary a few years ago in Bogota. Everyone was wearing white coats like pharmacists, and there were jars labeled with the names of all the homeopathic remedies in Spanish. When I asked one of the women working there about the shop she said, “Of course, homeopathy has been in Colombia for many decades, and Brazil and Argentina, Mexico too.” Who knew?

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

I met a woman named Rosa Salamanca when I was traveling in Colombia a few years ago. An anthropologist by training, she works with women refugees who have come to Bogota seeking work, often after their husbands have been killed (Colombia has an enormous number of internal refugees from the ongoing violence in the country). Rosa knew everything about the problems in her country, down to the nitty-gritty statistics on rape, domestic violence, and murders of indigenous people. And yet, she was cheery, vibrant and had a great sense of humor. I was deeply impressed with her ability to see so much horror and injustice firsthand, and yet be such a delightful person. I think this kind of broad perspective matched with a generosity of spirit is rare, but much needed.

In your opinion, what is the greatest reward of traveling?

In a sense, I think it’s very simple and perhaps trite: seeing things differently. After spending long stretches at home, I tend to get stuck in my ways and start to believe that the world is a limited, predictable place. But then, I’ll see something unusual in my travels—a curtain made of bottlecaps, a meal garnished with flowers, the wild juncture of ocean and jungle—and it jolts me out of my habituated perspectives into an entirely new aesthetic. When I get home even my humdrum possessions look unique. A stapler? A hair dryer? As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to see how rare—and challenging—it is to gain a new angle on life and this has made me appreciate the opportunity to travel even more.

Meet the Contributors: Marcia DeSanctis

2011-11-06T13:06:00.000-08:00

Marcia DeSanctis is a journalist and writer whose work has appeared in many publications, including Vogue, Departures, The New York Times Magazine, Recce, Best Travel Writing 2011 and Town & Country. Her story Masha, which appeared in The Best Women's Travel Writing 2011, won the Solas Grand Prize Silver Award for Travel Writing in 2011. Formerly, she was a network news producer for ABC, NBC, CBS and Dow Jones. You can visit her at www.marciadesanctis.com

When did you first know you were a traveler?

I was five when I first took an airplane from Boston to Tucson. My three sisters and I were dressed in matching dresses and white gloves. The planning, the packing, the trip to the airport – a journey felt momentous and significant. It still does.

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

This is a true story. When the great conductor Arturo Toscanini first saw the Grand Canyon, he started clapping. I get it – it’s not worth even wasting your breath on a triviality like “Wow!” Morning, evening, north rim, south rim, I’ve never been jolted, silenced, convulsed and healed like at the Grand Canyon. You do wonder what Coronado and his merry band had to say to each other when they stumbled upon this, instead of gold for Spain. Arizona, in spite of its weird and sometimes distressing political landscape, is a staggeringly beautiful state. I think they have the lock on suck-your-breath-away places in this country and maybe anywhere on earth.

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

I travel as a journalist, so I meet a lot of fascinating people. But the person who inspired me the most was a stranger named Laura. We were on the Acela from Washington to New York. I was in a very bad way, full-on take-no-prisoners sobbing right there on the train in the middle of the day, a true sorry sight. She offered me a tissue (a whole box, actually) and asked if I needed to talk. I did, and she listened. I think she was an angel.

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

That’s a tough one. But I’d say trying to revive a drunk co-pilot who collapsed on a flight from Baku to Leningrad comes pretty close.

Do you think women and men approach travel—or travel writing—differently?

Well, I do like to shop for make-up and lip gloss and moisturizer, even in the most remote places. But besides that, I tend to notice children, playgrounds, and imagine how different life would be for my own boy and girl if we lived in x, y or z. As for travel writing, I’m always grabbed by the story that presents itself viscerally and slowly, where nothing really big happens but something changes in me, nonetheless. I never know what these stories are until much later on. Perhaps this is feminine, I don’t know.

Through travel, have you overcome any fears or obstacles?

Honestly, what I fear the most is unpredictable security, long lines/waits at the airport, and cattle car flights. It’s hard to romanticize travel these days because the process, as we all know, is hideous. What are they checking for when they wave a wand over my hands? Why do I have to throw away my $36.00 mascara because it’s not in a Ziploc bag? Let’s not even start with the overhead compartments designed in 1962. And why do I only get a bag of sub-par pretzels? People, I left my house at 4 am to get here on time, and I’m hungry. You just have to power through it with Star Magazine.

How do you balance your home and travel life/how do you make it work to travel?

Go about it unselfishly, but as a necessity nonetheless. Family always comes first, no matter what. But my husband gives me a lot of leeway, so when I have it - even for a short time - and the money (or even when I don’t), I go. My kids are enriched by my travels and I think that getting out of the bubble of home and family makes me a better mother. It’s important to remember how big and accessible the world is, especially when you’re folding laundry. Also, my kids see how easy it can be to pick up and go, and except for the amount and frequency my 6’5” son needs to eat, they’re great travelers.

What’s on your list of future destinations?

I have two teenagers, which brings on an interesting dilemma. I tend to be a solo traveler, but now I want to show them the places I’ve fallen in love with along the way. St. Petersburg and Moscow are at the top of the list, as is Marrakesh, where I used to go a lot with my parents. I’d love to go back to the Aeolian Islands – Stromboli and Panarea – where I went for my honeymoon. Scotland amazed me from top to bottom. But for me, I’m going to Charleston, SC and then, Rwanda. I’ve never been to either.

What advice can you give to women who want to start traveling?

Never ever fear being alone. It’s really good for you, and it’s awesome to stretch out diagonally in a hotel bed, occasionally.

Meet the Contributors: Meera Subramanian

2011-10-28T14:17:00.000-07:00

Meera Subramanian writes about culture, faith and the environment for national and international publications including The New York Times, Virginia Quarterly Review, Smithsonian, Orion, and others, and serves as an editor for the online literary magazine Killing the Buddha. She resides somewhere between here and there, but mostly near a Cape Cod beach these days, with frequent sojourns in search of birds of prey, skies without contrails, and animals that might eat her. You can visit her at www.meerasub.org

When did you first know you were a traveler?

When I was eight years old I packed up and left home. I traveled light, only carrying a peanut butter and honey sandwich, wrapped up and stashed in my pocket. I was on a journey—it could take hours or days, no telling—to find the headwaters of Schwenker’s Pond, the place where my brother and I caught sunnies and then threw them back in each summer and skated on thin ice each winter. I didn’t know the word headwaters back then. I just knew that the water came from somewhere—it went to the pond and I had to cross it to take the path through the woods to my elementary school—but I wanted to know where it started. I wanted to know where the water came from. So off I went to find out. I went about two and half blocks before the creek, which, by my house, you could hop over in one step and barely get your shoes soggy, dwindled into nothing. There it was. I ate my sandwich, satisfied, and returned home to pore over my stack of National Geographics, planning the next adventure.

In what ways does writing inform your relationship with travel? Do you keep a journal? Conduct interviews? Write on location?

Travel sparks my writing, as it lights up the dormant recesses of my brain and body, dispelling the routines and ruts of home. When my brain and body are alive, so is the pen. I start sketching again, the camera clicks away, and words flow in the delicious, precious, mysterious way that words do. I fill journal pages. When reporting, I am usually immersed, spending days with my subjects, entering their world, attempting to record and photograph and notetake simultaneously, and transcribe at night before the day slips away. As a result, I am usually exhausted. Secret journalistic tool: chocolate covered espresso beans.

How do you balance your home and travel life/how do you make it work to travel?

This is by far the hardest for me, since the craving for movement is coupled with an equally overwhelming desire to nest…plant gardens, raise chickens, have a pet…not to mention boyfriend. And financial constraints loom too, since homes don’t pay for themselves while one jaunts about the world, although I have many times been blessed by the fortuitous arrival of wonderful friends of friends who can sublet. My work as a journalist is entirely based on giving myself a legitimate excuse to travel and sometimes even get paid for it. If not the recipient of an actual check covering travel expenses (it happens, but not often), at least the receipts are tax-deductible. And being a freewheelin’ freelancer means that, while I have about zero security and not much cash, I have tremendous freedom and chances to truly enjoy home when I’m there, even if I am glued to my computer, hashing out the next gig.

What advice can you give to women who want to start traveling?

In a word, wander. Uncharted territory is everywhere. If buying a round-the-world trip ticket seems a bit daunting, seek out the strange within the familiar. Find a place you’ve never been to near home and go for a day, or two, or a week. Sleep in a strange bed or pitch a tent. Take a bus or a bike even if you have a car. Or come up with a scavenger hunt for yourself with hard-to-find items—an organic unfiltered gin for the perfect martini, a Rupert Holmes LP, the Indian spice asafetida (also known as devil’s dung or food of the gods)—anything that takes you to spots you don’t usually go and makes you talk to people you don’t usually talk to. And don’t use the Internet, but ask people instead. Or how about this? Wander, but use explicit directions—take your second left, third right, etc.—and then enact them somewhere random and unknown. No matter how you approach it, go on your own, unless there are other human beings for whom your responsibility cannot be momentarily suspended. Then bring them along. Get out of your comfort zone. Talk to strangers.

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

He could have made it all up. He was a stranger, staying at the same guesthouse at Auroville in South India, an experiment in intentional living started in the Sixties and still going strong after thirty years. It was the kind of place where the children of the guesthouse owners grew up speaking seven languages, an embodiment of a world that defied borders. The stranger and I sat next to each other at the communal dinner table outside in the courtyard, the half dozen of us sharing stories of our lives.The tropical light had long ago faded by the time it came to him and and we were all shadowed in near darkness. He was European by descent, but had come to India as a baby, his father an engineer for some industrial company. And so this man, a hefty fellow in his fifties, had grown up multilingual, fluent in Hindi and other Indian languages, not unlike the children who had now been shuttled off to bed. His fair skin and opulent girth and fluent tongue made him a natural for Bollywood films, and he slipped into the industry, later helping to coordinate the filming of Gandhi as well.

But all those details of his life seemed insignificant compared to his memory of the dancing cobras. He started the story by saying it might not be true. “But this,” he said, “is what I remember.” He was just a boy, maybe five or six, and they were living in a remote location dictated by his father’s work. He was outside one day by himself when he saw two cobras not far from the house. They came together, he said, and rose up from the earth, winding the upper halves of their bodies together vertically, rhythmically, like water flowing, like scarves in the wind, wrapping around each other, intertwined. He was transfixed. He watched them for some amount of time that seemed stilled, a witness to something forbidden and unspeakably beautiful. Until the maid came out. She saw what he was watching and grabbed the boy, dragging him into the house, admonishing him severely and telling him that one should never—never—watch cobras when they are together. “They know,” she said, “and they will come after you.” Precautions were made that night. His bed raised high on blocks in his room. But they came, he said. The cobras were after him, and the next morning his mother took him on a train back into the city and he never returned to the place of the dancing cobras again.

What’s on your list of future destinations?

After a long stretch in New York City, I find myself gravitating to the most remote untouched places when I travel, often discovered through my research as a journalist who regularly writes about bird conservation. So the mythical place that I long to go to is Baffin Island, in the Arctic Ocean and the Canadian territory of Nunavut, suspended in icy waters where the North American land mass breaks off into an archipelago mosaic. In summer it is a land of eternal light, and while we frolic on beaches farther south, scads of snowy owls, geese, plovers, phalaropes and red polls, beluga whales and near-mythical narwals are breathing life into their next generation. I want to go spy on the wild regeneration. I’d like to raft the Joy River, passing Mount Moore, which the Inuit called Kigaviaqsitaujaq, “the place where falcons are.” I might have to make two trips there, though, the second in the depths of winter, in order to also fulfill the longing to see the Northern Lights cascading across an Arctic sky.

In your opinion, what is the greatest reward of traveling?

Perspective, full stop. Not only do you get a glimpse of the world traveled to, but you always return to your own home and see it with new eyes.

call for submissions: the best women's travel writing, volume 8

2011-09-08T18:04:00.000-07:00

It's my immense pleasure to announce that I'll be editing The Best Women's Travel Writing, Volume 8. It's an extraordinary honor to be asked again to edit this award-winning collection published annually by Travelers' Tales.

But I cannot do it alone! Women Travelers of the World, submit your best true travel tale for consideration!

To submit, please send your story in a doc or docx file to laviniaspalding@yahoo.com AND submit via the Travelers' Tales website, here: http://www.travelerstalesstories.com/author_info.cfm
It's important that you do both.

THE DEADLINE IS OCTOBER 1ST.

I look forward to reading your work!

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

We're looking for the full range of experience: adventurous, mystical, funny, poignant, cuisine-related, cross-cultural, transformational, funny, illuminating, frightening, or grim—as well as solo travel and travel with friends, partners, and families. Stories should reflect that unique

alchemy that occurs when you enter unfamiliar territory and begin to see the world differently as a result. Previously published essays are OK, provided you control all rights to the story. Multiple submissions are also OK.

Length & Type of Story
There’s no set length; however, shorter stories have a better chance of being accepted. I recommend the range of 750-2,500 words. To get a sense of what we want, please see The Best Women's Travel Writing 2011, The Best Women's Travel Writing 2010, The Best Women's Travel Writing 2009, The Best Women's Travel Writing 2008, The Best Women's Travel Writing 2007, The Best Women's Travel Writing 2006, and The Best Women’s Travel Writing 2005.

Remuneration:
$100 honorarium, a free copy of the book, and the right to purchase an unlimited number of any Travelers' Tales titles for 50% off the cover price (plus shipping and handling).

Submission:
Enter here: http://www.travelerstalesstories.com/author_info.cfm
AND
send your story to laviniaspalding@yahoo.com
Please include on your essay all of your contact information, plus a 3- to 10-line bio about yourself. Essays will not be returned; notification of acceptances only, close to publication date. Essays not selected will be considered for future Travelers’ Tales books, unless author explicitly requests otherwise. We collect year round for this annual collection, so if you miss the deadline your story will be considered for the following year.

Rights 
We are interested in non-exclusive rights, in all languages, throughout the world. Our use of the material does not restrict the authors' rights in any way to have their stories reprinted elsewhere.

Caveat 
In most cases we will do some editing of accepted stories for considerations of style, grammar, or length and may also alter the story title. Due to the large number of submissions received we will only contact you if we decide to include your submission in this collection. Final decisions are made near the end of the editorial process, and all authors whose stories have been accepted are notified at that time.

In addition to publishing books, we like to promote the best travel writing we can find and do so in our Editors' Choice section and elsewhere on our Web site. By submitting your story to Travelers' Tales, you agree that we may post it on our site as an example of good travel writing. You will not be paid for this use, but you will retain all rights to your material, and as a Travelers' Tales contributor you will be able to purchase any TT books at 50% off. If you do not wish us to post your story, please indicate this clearly at the beginning of your submission. If we select your story for publication, we will contact you regarding permission and payment.

Behind the Scenes at the 2011 Book Passage Travel and Food Writing & Photography Conference

2011-08-15T16:40:00.000-07:00

Around midnight on Saturday, I sat in a piazza under a perfectly full moon listening to my new friend Pam Mandel strum a ukulele. On my left, legendary travel writer Don George crooned "I Will Survive," while across the table, San Francisco Chronicle travel editor Spud Hilton plucked at his own ukulele. On my right, award-winning photographer Liza Gershmann used my iphone to search for lyrics to an Indigo Girls' tune, and World Hum's Jim Benning sang a Death Cab for Cutie song. Together, we belted out "Rocket Man," "The Rainbow Connection," and "It Had to Be You." Our coda was "Summertime"--the perfect song to end the perfect evening.

You really should've been there.
Let me rephrase that: you really could have been there.

This was no private party for the travel-writing elite or some secret society of travelerati. It was the annual Book Passage Travel and Food Writing & Photography Conference in Corte Madera, California--open to anyone and hands down the most exciting writing event I've ever attended. Consider this: there's no application process, no previous publishing credits required. No judgment, ego, or cliques, and absolutely no limit to the connections you can make.

I spent four days in Corte Madera. During that time, I discussed the origin of my name with Andrew McCarthy over lunch; sipped absinthe with the hilariously irreverent David Farley; laughed in the afternoon sun with travel-writing God Tim Cahill; discussed travel journaling books with Phil Cousineau; drank wine with Dame Georgia Hess; hung around with Travelers' Tales co-founder Larry Habegger; bonded with veteran conference attendees Abbie Kozolchyk, Jill Robinson, and Marcy Gordon, spilled lemonade on Jeff Greenwald before he released seven live snakes into the audience; overshared about my personal life with AFAR executive editor Julia Cosgrove; and debated the literary merits of the words "slut" and "whore" with Spud Hilton. And in the process, I made friends. So many wonderful new friends.

And next year you can do the same.

On day one, novelist/poet/travel writer Linda Watanabe McFerrin addressed the conference attendees. "Park your shrinking violet at the door," she instructed. This was it--the best chance you might ever get to network with people whose words you may have only read in the pages of National Geographic Adventure; your opportunity to clink glasses with Lowell Thomas award winners, to make an impression on someone who could literally change your life.

Janice Cooke Newman also spoke, introducing herself as "the poster girl" for the BP conference; once an unpublished attendee, she was now on faculty and the author of two award-winning books, as well as numerous articles published in The LA Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, and Backpacker.

The conference isn't free (or even cheap, for that matter), but for what you get, it's an uncommonly good deal. Moreover, I'm here to tell you it's worth it. Even at twice the cost, it would be worth it.

Admittedly, I'm not a fledgling writer. I've written two books and edited one, I contribute regularly to Yoga Journal, and I've published in a number of magazines and online. I'll confess that my main objective in attending the conference wasn't to learn, but to put faces to the online names I knew by heart. I wanted to meet some of my travel-writing heroes, and I did. In fact, I did more than meet them.

I sang karaoke with them.

But guess what: it turns out I did learn. A lot.

In four days, I learned everything I ever wanted to know about writing for newspapers, pitching stories, and structuring a travel story. I learned how to get a foot in at magazines like AFAR and Sunset. I learned what editors appreciate (gratitude, honesty, focus) and what they detest (press trips, plagiarism, staycations). I even learned how to improve my website. As you can tell from my photos, I did not attend any of the photography classes. I wish I had, so I could have learned to take a picture that did justice to this extraordinary conference.

Next year.

On Sunday afternoon, Don George and I were talking for a few minutes in the parking lot, discussing the previous night--the full moon, karaoke, wine, camaraderie, and finally, that amazing ukulele singalong.

"It was magic," Don said. "Wasn't it?"

Yes, I agreed. It was.

And this is mostly what I learned--that when you take the leap and invest in your passion; when you trust that it'll be worth it, it will be more than worth it.

It will be magic.

the best women's travel writing 2011

2011-05-30T18:40:00.000-07:00

It's official! My new anthology, The Best Women's Travel Writing 2011, published by Travelers' Tales, is out! It's available on Amazon and (as evidenced by the fuzzy iphone photo) on bookstore shelves. Though our first scheduled event is actually a reading at the University of Prince Edward Island, I'll be launching the book this week in San Francisco, with a book party on Monday night, May 23rd, and a San Francisco Travel Lit and Lectures Series event on Thursday night, May 26th. Hope to see you at one or all of the events...

Here's a complete BWTW11 schedule:

5/21 Faculty Lounge, University of Prince Edward Island
7:30 pm
Bonnie Stewart reading
Charlottetown, PEI

5/23 Book Launch Party, San Francisco, CA
7pm at Place Pigalle in Hayes Valley

5/26 Books Inc. Marina, San Francisco, CA
7 pm, SF Travel Lit & Lectures Series
Lavinia Spalding, Marcia DeSanctis, Laura Deutsch, Marianne Rogoff
2251 Chestnut Street
415-931-3633
http://www.booksinc.net/SFMarina

5/29 Reading Frenzy at the Telluride Mtn. Film Festival, CO
2-4 pm
Kasha Rigby signing
http://www.mountainfilm.org/reading-frenzy

6/3 Books, Inc., Berkeley, CA
7-9 pm
Books, Inc 1760 Fourth St. Berkeley, CA 94710
Jacqueline Luckett, Lavinia Spalding, Marianne, Eva Tuschman, Erin Van Rheenan and Marcy Gordon
http://www.booksinc.net/Berkeley

6/4 Rebound Books, San Rafael, CA
4-6 pm
Rebound Bookstore
Marianne Rogoff, Lavinia Spalding, Eva Tuschman, Laura Deutsch
1611 4th Street, San Rafael, CA 94904
(415) 482-0550
http://www.reboundbookstore.com/

6/16 Lolita, New York City, NY
7pm
David Farley's Restless Legs Reading Series
266 Broome Street (on the Lower East Side)
New York, NY 10002-4509
Abbie Kozolchyk, Meera Subramanian, Nancy Kline, Carol Reichert
(212) 966-7223
http://www.dfarley.com/restlesslegs.html

6/22 The Elliott Bay Book Company, Seattle, WA
7 pm
1521 Tenth Avenue Seattle WA 98122
(206) 624-6600
Sara Bathum, Susan Rich, Jocelyn Edelstein
http://www.elliottbaybook.com/

6/25 Book Passages Corte Madera
1 pm
51 Tamal Vista Blvd., Corte Madera, CA 94925
(415) 927- 0960
Laura Deutsch, Marcy Gordon, Erin Van Rheenan, Lavinia Spalding, Angie Chuang
http://www.bookpassage.com/

7/8 Vromans, Los Angeles, CA
7 pm
695 E. Colorado Blvd
Pasadena, CA 91101
Tel: 626-449-5320
Anne Van, Bridget Crocker, Marianne Rogoff, Lavinia Spalding
http://www.vromansbookstore.com/

7/9 Travelers’ Bookcase Los Angeles
6 p.m.
Anne Van, Marianne Rogoff, Bridget Crocker and Lavinia Spalding
8375 West 3rd Street
Los Angeles, CA 90048-4312
(323) 655-0575
Contact: Natalie Compagno
travelersbookcase@gmail.com
www.travelbooks.com

7/25 Brookline Booksmith, Brookline, MA
7 pm
279 Harvard St, Brookline, MA 02446‬ (near Boston)
Meera Subramanian, Carol Reichert, Anna Wexler, and Marcia DeSanctis
Contact: Evan Perriello
617-739-6002
http://www.brooklinebooksmith.com

8/6 The Golden Notebook, Woodstock, NY
4 pm
Nancy Kline, Abbie Kozolchyk, Carol Reichert, Anna Wexler, and Nicolle Elizabeth
29 Tinker St.
Woodstock, NY
845-679-8000
http://www.goldennotebook.com

10/4 Wide World of Books and Maps, Seattle, WA
7 pm
Susan Rich, Sara Bathum, Michelle Theriault Boots
4411 Wallingford Ave N
Seattle, WA 98103
(888) 534-3453
http://www.wideworldtravelstore.com/shop/index.php

the best women's travel writing 2011 at books, inc. in the marina

2011-05-26T13:30:00.000-07:00

Tonight I'm doing my first bookstore event for my new anthology, The Best Women's Travel Writing 2011, as part of the wonderful San Francisco Travel Book Club and Lecture Series. I'm thrilled to be joined by three of my contributors--amazing and outrageously talented women. We'll read from our book and then do a panel talk with Q&A.

Presenting the women reading with me tonight...

Marcia DeSanctis spent years traveling the world as a network news producer and is now writing a memoir. Her work has been in Vogue, Departures, The New York Times Magazine, The Christian Science Monitor, More, Princeton Alumni Weekly, and the Huffington Post. She loves to travel alone and her idea of heaven is arriving at a new place, opening the hotel room door, checking out what candy is in the mini-bar, and then heading outside to explore her new, temporary neighborhood. She tries to pinpoint a place to have her coffee every morning and always ducks into a pharmacy. She loves to bring home toothpaste or a jar of vitamins as souvenirs.

Laura Deutsch has traveled the world in search of answers to life’s big questions: Why did that guru give me a mantra that’s the name of a high-end furniture store? If I eat foie gras without knowing it, have I really eaten foie gras? Along the way, Laura invented Conversational Yoga, mastered the Equine Experience to attain enlightenment by grooming a horse, and visited spas where she frequently found herself in hot water. Her misadventures have entertained readers of the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, More, and San Francisco magazine. Laura is writing an irreverent memoir about her spiritual journey around the world and leads writing retreats from Tassajara to Tuscany.

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 and leads weeklong writers studios in Mexico every January and August.

The details...

5/26 Books Inc. Marina, San Francisco, CA
7 pm, SF Travel Book Club & Lecture Series
Lavinia Spalding, Marcia DeSanctis, Laura Deutsch, Marianne Rogoff
2251 Chestnut Street
415-931-3633
http://www.booksinc.net/SFMarina

Hope to see you there!

the tao of travel journaling

2011-04-01T15:33:00.000-07:00

This spring, Paul Theroux releases a new collection called The Tao of Travel: Enlightenments from Lives on the Road.

Bound as a traveler's journal, it will be "part miscellany, part philosophical guide, part how-to, and part reminiscence" and will collect "the best writing on travel from the books that shaped Theroux as both a reader and a traveler in celebration of his decades wandering the globe."

A sneak peek of the Tao according to Theroux:

THE ESSENTIAL TAO OF TRAVEL
Leave home
Go alone
Travel light
Bring a map
Go by land
Walk across a national frontier
Keep a journal
Read a novel that has no relation to the place you’re in
If you must bring a cell phone, avoid using it
Make a friend

It should come as no surprise that my favorite on the list is keep a journal.

We live in fast, easy travel times. Armed with internet access and a credit card, we can book transportation and lodging across the world within minutes, and while traversing remote back corners of the globe, stay virtually connected to everyone we know. But what does remain a challenge in this era of streamlined travel is ensuring we take the time to fully absorb and examine all that we experience. There’s no better way to accomplish this than by carrying a journal.

Among the dazzling list of options available for chronicling one’s travels (blogs, email, facebook, twitter, YouTube) the classic handwritten travelogue stands unparalleled. We write words in an empty book, and an inanimate object is transformed into a living, breathing memoir. In turn, as we write, the journal transforms us. It allows us to instantly process impressions, which leads to a more examined layer of consciousness in both the present and the future.

In honor of Theroux's Tao of Travel top ten, here are my own top ten reasons to keep a road journal, excerpted from my book, Writing Away: A Creative Guide to Awakening the Journal-Writing Traveler.

1. Because Memory is a Slippery Bugger

When I was thirty-one, I backpacked alone through Vietnam without a journal. I’d recently purchased a pricey camera, so I enthusiastically snapped hundreds of photos, never bothering to write down a word. Not surprisingly, what I retain from that trip are imprecise memories and a shoebox filled with slides of people and places I can no longer name. Furthermore, because I traveled solo, I can’t even poach my friends’ memories for missing details. In short, I didn’t bother asking myself what I’d want to remember and what I’d likely forget.

When traveling, we assign more significance to our experiences than we do to the happenings of our daily life. That outlook, along with our tricked-out digital camera and its generous memory card, instills a false sense of confidence about how much we’ll retain. Out on the road, life is so electric, jazzy, fresh, and funky—how could we ever forget? But we do. We forget, and then we hate ourselves later for mistreating our own memories. No matter how unique, powerful, outrageous, or touching our story, the mind’s flimsy hard drive simply cannot be relied upon to safeguard the particulars. But a journal is personal travel insurance, protecting our memories from strolling off unchaperoned, vanishing without a goodbye or backwards glance. This is the driving force behind most people’s road journals, and although basic, its importance cannot be overstated.

2. There’s No Better Keepsake than a Tattered Notebook

Journals get tucked away in drawers or basements to be dusted off years or generations later and enjoyed for the tactile sensation that only an old, beloved book can deliver. Nothing can replace a road-worn journal filled with scribbles, coffee cup rings, doodles, and bus tickets. Years from now, when your journal unexpectedly finds its way back into your hands on a day when you have time to open it, it’s time travel—a complimentary door-to-door shuttle delivering you back to your most fearless and fascinated self, when you were out roaming, eyes wide open, connecting to the world and its people, tracing the journey within the pages of your messy notebook. It’s more than a collection of words; it’s a personal artifact.

3. Because You Need an Anchor

Any way you look at it, travel stirs us up. It’s a stimuli smorgasbord with a menu of curiosity, frustration, self-consciousness, bliss, courage, vulnerability, stress, alienation, titillation, fear, loss, boredom, lust, loneliness, awe—you name it. And in addition to emotions, we’re perpetually absorbing information and sensory phenomena. But a notebook is a traveler’s salve, soothing the commotion of our relentless thoughts by providing a safe container for them. The act of writing anchors us, slowing and deepening our reflections so that we articulate with more honesty and precision than when we think and talk. To my mind, this is the ultimate reward of a travel journal: being forced, routinely, to slow down and pay attention. Journaling demands stillness and extreme concentration. If we set aside even a few minutes a day to sit with our notebook and write about where we are and what we’re currently experiencing with all our senses, it becomes a practice. It frees us from thinking only of past and future—the site we’ve just visited or our next destination. We can let go of hopes and fears as we bring attention to this moment, then the next, and the one after that. Over time these brief, disconnected moments of awareness form a cohesive thread, a solid habit of increased mindfulness that can carry over into all areas of life.

4. And a Sacred Space to Call Your Own

When we travel solo, a journal keeps us company. Conversely, traveling with others means we get our fair share of camaraderie but routinely forfeit our privacy. We double up on rooms, rides, meals, and lavatories; share maps, gear, and dry socks. But your notebook is private property. You won’t be asked to lend it out. It can thus become a haven, a sacred oasis to come home to when travel has thrown you off-kilter; a personal traveling shrine or altar where you commune with only you.

5. Journaling is a Profound Vehicle for Self-Discovery

While any journal is a portal to expanded awareness, the travelogue is an unparalleled avenue for self-discovery. Paired with the myriad rewards and ordeals of travel, it can solicit breakthroughs that other journals simply cannot. Travel tilts us off our axis and enrolls us in a crash course in cutting through desire, attachment, aversion, and ignorance. On the road, we’re in constant flux—it’s an impermanence free- for-all. Leaving home demands that we surrender control, break out of cozy routines, and confront inconvenience and obstacles (travel’s ever-present entourage) around each corner. We’re continually forced to reassess our entrenched beliefs, as well as question social and cultural concepts we’ve grown up accepting as appropriate and normal—from the way we discipline children to what constitutes breakfast food, to how we bathe, shake hands, and clothe ourselves. Keeping a journal while navigating the discoveries and obstacles that come with travel is a rare and extraordinary opportunity for growth.

6. You Might Need that Odd Bit of Information

On the most basic and practical level, a travelogue is a vault of information that you wish to preserve—the name of that historic hotel in Livingston, Montana, the artist you discover at the Uffizi Gallery, the family you bunk with in Tunisia, or the location of a dreamy holistic spa in Jamaica. A journal can store practical info that you want to remember but not necessarily share with your blog readers or email list. Some photographers keep journals of locations, film, and camera settings, while chefs store recipes and lists of ingredients in their journals to reference later. If you’re a detail hound, you can even begin a table of contents on the first page to be filled in as you go. It’ll be painless to find information later, such as favorite restaurants, inns, shops, campsites, or spas you want to recommend to fellow travelers (or better yet, return to yourself).

7. It’s the World’s Best Writing Exercise

In Fresh Air Fiend, Paul Theroux commented, “When people ask me what they should do to become a writer, I seldom mention books. I assume the person has a love for the written word, and solitude, and a disdain for wealth—so I say, ‘You want to be a writer? First leave home.’”

Travel has the ability to make writers of us all, and keeping a journal is what can turn the potential into reality. Throw yourself in the mix and you’ve got the winning trifecta: Travel supplies endless material and inspiration, the Travelogue provides a canvas and demands commitment and examination, and you, the intrepid and attentive Traveler, are the prime candidate for the position. One of travel’s great benefits is that once we cross a border, we needn’t even seek out creative inspiration—it’s everywhere. We step off the runway and within hours find ourselves surrounded by plants and flowers we don’t recognize and animals we’ve seen only in zoos or on TV. We interact with people who speak only words we can’t understand, observe customs contrary to our own, pay for exotic trinkets with Monopoly money, eat unidentifiable food. For some, this can be unsettling. For the writer, it’s a windfall.

8. “Elsewhere” is a Place Creativity Grows

Pablo Picasso said, “All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.” That problem, I think, can be solved with travel. Travel renews our youth, giving us dispensation to reclaim the original zest for art so often rooted out of us as adults. Surrounded by the unfamiliar, we regain the eyes of a six year old, and suddenly we’re handed all the conditions necessary to become an artist again: inspiration, free time, a portable canvas (the journal), and a cornucopia of exotic materials at our disposal. Can you think of a better environment for revamping your creativity?

Infusing your notebook with visual components is more than a pleasurable, relaxing activity with a visual payoff; the act of doing so also immediately intensifies your connection to a location, adding another layer of self-awareness and expression. By deciding to include artwork of any kind, you’re signing on to register impressions in a new way—with keen observation. When you return home, accompanying you will be a dynamic hybrid journal that interweaves writing and imagery—a tribute to your experience and destination.

9. A Shared Journal Can Help you Connect

If you’re traveling with a friend or spouse, creating a shared journal can bring you closer and foster a sense of unity. The upshot of this is multifold: first, by sharing the goal of a travelogue, you’re more likely to commit since you’ll be loath to flake on each other. Furthermore, when you’re not feeling the writing vibe, he or she may be—you’ll egg each other on. Knowing you’ll be sharing your words will also up the ante, adding zing to your writing. One more bonus is that you’ll no longer rely strictly on your own mind, so when your memory falters, your friend might provide insight into the circumstances that led to you falling off your camel in Giza or your barstool in Berlin. If you’re in a group, you can create a feeling of community by starting an “open” notebook that members of your group can contribute to at any time. At trip’s end, photocopy it for everyone or create a separate album with pictures, quotes, names, inside jokes, highlights, and lowlights. Even if you and your friends are together 24/7, you bring to the book distinctive perspectives. You’ll appreciate accessing their take on shared experiences, and you’ll learn from these secondhand impressions. Ultimately, your friends’ stories will inform your own.

10. It’s a Wonderful Outlet for Handling Travel Stress

Travel isn’t always easy; sometimes it can completely derail you. On these occasions, the journal can be your lifeline, something solid and steadfast to grab hold of in the midst of upheaval. When feelings of homesickness, powerlessness, frustration, or fear wiggle their nasty little fangs into your erstwhile perfect vacation, you can draw strength and comfort from writing—using your journal as a refuge and a reminder of how resilient you are and how courageous you want to be. If you start losing your temper (or sense of humor), you can call on your journal to help you find it again. That’s what it’s there for. Your journal will help you cope, like a portable therapist. You might even find you can be more honest with your notebook than with your therapist.

Why do you keep a travel journal?

(photo by Jen Castle)

around the world in 300 stories

2010-11-27T15:29:00.000-08:00

I've visited so many countries and continents in the past few months, I should have the world's worst case of jet lag. Instead, I'm only itching for more. More travel! More, more, more! This is likely because I did most of my wandering from an apartment in San Francisco.

I only physically traveled to three places this fall: Kentucky, Tunisia, and Sicily. (I know: who the hell is my travel agent?) But in my head, I've landed in India at least two dozen times. I've crisscrossed Africa, North and South America, Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and the Middle East. I've been to Haiti, Iraq, Cuba, Bhutan, Pakistan, North Korea. And I've been all over Europe. I mean all over it.

I'm editing The Best Women's Travel Writing 2011, and though I read most of these submissions--approximately 300--from the comfort of my couch in California, the result is that I feel extremely well traveled.

This is the unique magic of reading about travel. It transports me, revs me up, triggers whatever chemical it is that's linked to wanderlust. Is it one of those same chemicals released when we fall in love? Sure feels like it.

Reading the stories has been pure pleasure, but selecting those that will be included is one of the most difficult tasks I've ever tackled--and one of the most rewarding. It's not quite over yet (if your story is accepted for inclusion, you will hear from the publishers, Travelers' Tales, with a contract), but whatever happens and whichever stories are included in the anthology, I'll tell you this: every story I've read has affected me, changed me. My internal passport has been stamped and stamped and stamped.

A heartfelt thank-you to all of you incredible, inspiring women who submitted your stories of the road. Thank you for keeping the women's travel-writing fire crackling, and thank you for taking me with you.

call for submissions: the best women's travel writing 2011

2010-08-31T15:51:00.000-07:00

photo by Jen Castle

* Please note that this call for submissions was for The Best Women's Travel Writing 2011. I am now accepting submissions for the 2012 edition. To submit a story, please send it to me at laviniaspalding.com AND submit online at the Travelers' Tales website. The deadline is Oct. 1, 2011, but submit early for a better chance of being included.

Calling all women travel writers!

Is there a story held captive in you that's begging to be set free? Here's your chance to liberate it: send it to me!
I have the honor this year of editing the Travelers' Tales anthology, The Best Women's Travel Writing 2011.

I've spent countless hours over the past few years trying to convince people to tell their stories--not to me or to the public, but to their journals. In my book, Writing Away, I persistently deliver the message that in this very public era, it wouldn't kill you to keep some stories to yourself. But my tune changes a bit with this post, because now I'm encouraging you to go ahead and make those stories public.

Send your best true tale of the road to submit@travelerstales.com.

We're looking for the full range of experience: adventurous, mystical, funny, poignant, cuisine-related, cross-cultural, transformational, funny, illuminating, frightening, or grim—as well as solo travel and travel

with friends, partners, and families. Stories should reflect that unique alchemy that occurs when you enter unfamiliar territory and begin to see the world differently as a result. Previously published essays are OK, provided you control all rights to the story. Multiple submissions are also OK.
The deadline is September 21st.

Length & Type of Story

There’s no set length; however, shorter stories have a better chance of being accepted. We recommend the range of 750-2,500 words. To get a sense of what we want, please see The Best Women's Travel Writing 2010, The Best Women's Travel Writing 2009, The Best Women's Travel Writing 2008, The Best Women's Travel Writing 2007, The Best Women's Travel Writing 2006, and The Best Women’s Travel Writing 2005.

Remuneration: $100 honorarium, a free copy of the book, and the right to purchase an unlimited number of any Travelers' Tales titles for 50% off the cover price (plus shipping and handling).

Submission:

Email your submissions to:
submit@travelerstales.com.
If sending attachments, they must be in MS Word or RTF format. Please put “The Best Women’s Travel Writing 2011” in the subject line, and please be sure your name and contact info is in the attachment, not just in your email. Submissions will not be returned.

You can also send a hard copy to:
Travelers' Tales 
853 Alma Street  
Palo Alto, CA  
94301 
Please include on your essay all of your contact information, plus a 3- to 10-line bio about yourself. Essays will not be returned; notification of acceptances only, close to publication date. Essays not selected will be considered for future Travelers’ Tales books, unless author explicitly requests otherwise. We collect year round for this annual collection, so if you miss the deadline your story will be considered for the following year.

Rights 

We are interested in non-exclusive rights, in all languages, throughout the world. Our use of the material does not restrict the authors' rights in any way to have their stories reprinted elsewhere.

Caveat 

In most cases we will do some editing of accepted stories for considerations of style, grammar, or length and may also alter the story title. Due to the large number of submissions received we will only contact you if we decide to include your submission in this collection. Final decisions are made near the end of the editorial process, and all authors whose stories have been accepted are notified at that time.

In addition to publishing books, we like to promote the best travel writing we can find and do so in our Editors' Choice section and elsewhere on our Web site. By submitting your story to Travelers' Tales, you agree that we may post it on our site as an example of good travel writing. You will not be paid for this use, but you will retain all rights to your material, and as a Travelers' Tales contributor you will be able to purchase any TT books at 50% off. If you do not wish us to post your story, please indicate this clearly at the beginning of your submission. If we select your story for publication, we will contact you regarding permission and payment.

don't you have an elsewhere to be?

2010-08-18T13:00:00.000-07:00

First things first: I'm using a quote from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" as a title for this blog post. Go ahead, judge me. It's good enough that I'll repeat it:

Don't you have an elsewhere to be?

That's the message San Francisco's Tara Russell is sending out, far and wide. Russell, a certified life coach who runs Three Month Visa Coaching and Consulting , specializes in career breaks and life sabbaticals. Simply put, she gets armchair travelers off the couch and on the plane. Says Russell, "You know the Jet Blue guy who pulled the hatch to escape his job? Well, he wouldn't have had to do that if he'd talked to me first."

In January of 2008, Russell also launched the San Francisco Travel Book Club and Lectures Series, which she holds monthly at Books, Inc. on Chestnut Street. (Books Inc., "The West's Oldest
Independent Bookseller," is a locally owned and operated bookseller with 10 locations in California whose origin dates back to the Gold Rush Days of 1851 when Anton Roman struck it rich in Shasta City, California and set himself up in business selling books.) Since the inception of the Lecture Series, Russell has brought in an impressive list of travel writers and authors, including Rolf Potts (author of Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-term World Travel), Franz Wisner (author of Honeymoon with My Brother), Stephanie Elizondo Griest (author of Around the Bloc: My Life in Moscow, Beijing and Havana), and Greg Sullivan, founder of AFAR magazine. (And me. I had the pleasure of speaking for the lecture series in 2009 when Writing Away: A Creative Guide to Awakening the Journal-Writing Traveler came out.)

Next month, Russell is teaming up with the travel divas from Briefcase to Backpack as they launch "MEET, PLAN, GO", an exciting nationwide movement to raise awareness about career breaks and extended travel, in 13 cities across the United States and Canada. I've been invited to attend the San Francisco event on September 14th as a "travel ambassador." The evening promises that you will "MEET inspirational speakers and like-minded travelers in your area, get motivation, contacts and resources necessary to PLAN the trip of a lifetime, start taking concrete steps forward, and get ready to GO!" Expect lively panel discussions with travel experts, travel prize giveaways, and enough inspiration on tap to motivate everyone attending to pack their bags and find their "elsewhere."

The Wilderness of Your Intuition

2010-05-28T15:30:00.001-07:00

I read a quote today that I felt compelled to share.

"The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. You can't get there by bus, only by hard work and risk, and by not quite knowing what you are doing. What you will discover will be wonderful. What you discover will be yourself."
-Alan Alda

I'll admit something: it's been a while since I've immersed myself in anything I'd call truly creative. I finished an article for Yoga Journal a few months back, and I taught a wonderful journaling workshop in Springdale, Utah in March. After that I did some traveling and some cooking, and I've been fooling around on my guitar a little. But the truth is that for the last month or so, I've been fully embracing "the city of my comfort." I've been a city girl.

But today I'm not going to do that. For the rest of today, I'm heading elsewhere. I'm going into the wilderness of my intuition. Because what better day to do so than today?

Thanks Alan.

The Art of Journaling: Weekend Workshop in Zion

2010-02-24T09:09:00.000-08:00

There are a few spaces still available for the upcoming weekend workshop in beautiful Springdale, Utah, on March 6th and 7th!

March 6 & 7, 2010, Saturday & Sunday
"The Art of Journaling"
Literary Workshop
10:00–5:00 pm Saturday & Sunday
Canyon Community Center
126 Lion Blvd.
$130 Z-Arts! members /
$150 non-members

Let this Spring workshop featuring Author, Lavinia Spalding and Artist, Deb Durban be your creative guide to awakening the journal writer in you!

The fee includes materials. Please pre-pay and reserve your space by sending a check to: Z-Arts!, PO Box 115, Springdale, UT 84767. Space is a concern so we do ask you to register early.

There is also a special event free and open to everyone Friday, March 5th.6-8 pm. "The Art of Journaling- a reading and discussion with Lavinia Spalding" hosted by Sundancer Books, 975 Zion Park Blvd.

If you have any other questions, please email zarts@springdaletown.com or call (435)772-0909

If you would like to attend the upcoming "Art of Journaling" workshop offered by Z-Arts! in March but are unable to due to financial restrictions, a unique "scholarship" is being made available to a worthy participant. To apply for this full-tuition scholarship, please submit a 50 word entry expressing your desire, need, or passion to attend! (Deadline March 5th - EXTENDED)

Please email: zarts@springdaletown.com or mail to:
Z-Arts!, PO Box 115
Springdale, UT 84767

The workshop is being held Saturday and Sunday, March 6th and 7th, 2010 from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM at the Canyon Community Center (CCC).

"Writing Away" Chosen One of the Best Travel Books of 2009 by The Los Angeles Times

2010-01-11T20:34:00.000-08:00

I'm happy to announce that Writing Away was chosen one of the best travel books of 2009 by The Los Angeles Times.

See the full list here: Best Travel Books of 2009

Signing/Reading at the Green Arcade on October 12th

2009-10-06T16:54:00.001-07:00

Please join me at the Green Arcade Bookstore in San Francisco at 7 p.m. on Monday, October 12th. I'll be discussing, reading from, and signing copies of WRITING AWAY: A Creative Guide to Awakening the Journal-Writing Traveler. The Green Arcade is a fabulous independent bookstore at the corner of Market and Gough that specializes in what I'd call "San Francisco sensibility" books--think sustainability, organic food & gardening, the environment, politics, art, green architecture, permaculture, travel, social commentary, etc. I hope to see you there!

http://www.thegreenarcade.com

myDetour comes to San Francisco

2009-08-26T15:43:00.000-07:00

The amazing Moleskine myDetour project will be in San Francisco Sept. 10-October 1.

From www.moleskine.com: "With previous stops in New York, Paris, Berlin, Milan and Istanbul, myDetour brings along- together with the drop boxes - a collection of sketches, writings and drawings created by visual artists, writers, designers, creative people of all sorts from past myDetour editions around the world. The San Francisco edition follows the creative theme of District of You, a tribute to the familiar places, an invitation to find the extraordinary side of your ordinary surroundings."

For more details, go here

Moleskine lovers of the world unite!

2009-07-28T23:33:00.000-07:00

My new book, WRITING AWAY, was featured on Moleskinerie.com the other day, the meeting site for moleskine lovers far and wide!

Check it out @ moleskinerie.com

Writing Away Interview on Utah Public Radio

2009-06-30T16:21:00.000-07:00

On June 10th, I was interviewed on Utah Public Radio by Lee Austin for the program, Access Utah about my new book, Writing Away: A Creative Guide to Awakening the Journal-Writing Traveler. Here's the link to listen to the program. I'm on the second half hour of the show.

http://www.upr.org/access.html

Keeping a Travel Journal

2009-06-26T11:19:00.000-07:00

Lots of news, and I will soon post some photos from my book tour--which was amazing, to say the least--but first, the link to a new Rolf Potts column on World Hum in which he shares some of my thoughts on keeping a travel journal.

Enjoy!

My Book Tour

2009-05-13T22:49:00.000-07:00

Please come and see me at one of the following locations during the month of June, 2009!

I’m available to visit your school or bookshop to speak about the relevance of keeping a handwritten travel journal in the digital age, and to sign copies of my book, Writing Away: A Creative Guide to Awakening the Journal-Writing Traveler.

Stay tuned for updated info...

TOUR DATES

June 7 - July 13

June 7, Boulder, Utah
7 p.m. Hell's Backbone Grill
Author Reception & Signing
Tel: 435-335-7464

June 8 Springdale, Utah
Sundancer Books
Tel: 435-772-3400‎
7-9 p.m.

June 9, Page, Arizona
7:00 pm (doors open by 6:45 pm)
Glen Canyon Lecture Series
Carl Hayden Visitor Center at Glen Canyon Dam, Hwy 89

June 11, Flagstaff, Arizona
Author Reception, Reading, and Signing
6:00 The Wine Loft
17 N San Francisco St.
Flagstaff, AZ 86001
Tel: 928-773-9463

June 12, Flagstaff, Arizona
3-5 p.m. Starrlight Books
15 N. Leroux St.
Tel: 928-774-6813

June 13, Scottsdale, Arizona
Author Reception and Signing
7:00 p.m. Terroir Wine Pub
7001 North Scottsdale Road, #157
Tel: 480-922-3470

June 14, Tempe, Arizona
2:00 p.m. Changing Hands Bookstore
6428 S McClintock Dr. (McClintock at Guadalupe)
Tempe, AZ 85283
Tel: 480-730-0205

June 15, Goodyear, Arizona
6:30-8 p.m. Lavendar Moon Store
14130 W. McDowell Rd. Suite A104
Goodyear, AZ
623-935-0501

June 19, Tucson, Arizona
-7:30 p.m. Antigone Books
411 North 4th Avenue
Tel: 520-792-3715

June 22, Boulder, Utah
7:00 p.m. The Anasazi State Park Museum
HIghway 12
435-335-7308

June 23, Salt Lake City, Utah
- 7:00 p.m. King’s English Bookstore
1511 S 1500 E.
Tel: 801.484.9100

June 29, San Francisco, CA
BOOK LAUNCH PARTY!
7 p.m. The Orbit Room
1900 Market St.
Tel: 415-252-9525

July 13, San Francisco, CA
- 7:30 p.m.
Books Inc., Marina
San Francisco Travel Book Club and Lecture Series
2251 Chestnut St .
Tel: 415-931-3633

Introducing Writing Away

2009-05-01T16:59:00.000-07:00

Writing Away is available! Order Yours Here... A sneak preview... INTRODUCTION For behind all seen things lies something vaster; everything is but a path, a portal, or a window opening on something more than itself. – Antoine de Saint-Exupery Some years ago, while packing to move from San Francisco to Utah, I unearthed the journal from my first trip abroad, a college break spent in Europe with my best friend. It was a fat black sketchbook with a colorful collage of ticket stubs and photos haphazardly laminated on the cover. Considering my stress level that day, I’m not sure why I took the time to open it, except that it looked inviting, and I’m a woman with a tender spot in her heart for procrastination. A familiar line caught my attention on the first page: “Our ride from Heathrow to the hostel was the scariest ten minutes of my life.” The journal was written in my hand, but younger—the cursive more deliberate, with wider loops and an endearing overuse of exclamation points and ellipses. What can I say, it was irresistible. Wild, wild horses couldn’t drag me away. Inside were my own experiences, but lived by another me—a young woman I recognized only vaguely. I sat sandwiched between cardboard boxes on the hardwood floor of my bedroom, reacquainting myself with a gutsy, curious, naïve, self-conscious, intense, bad-ass twenty-something version of myself. The writing in my diary was raw, affected, and—let’s be honest—not good. And I already knew how the story ended. Still, I couldn’t put it down. After an hour, I stood up, stretched, and limped my cramped body to the kitchen for a cup of tea. Waiting for the water to boil, my mind sifted through near-forgotten images and experiences preserved by the journal—a rooftop party in Seville where I drank tinto de verano (red wine and orange Fanta—tastes better than it sounds) and learned to dance the Sevillana by moonlight; a bleak Prague hostel outfitted with cots and communal cold showers a la gym class, which turned out to be an abandoned high school; a performance of King Lear at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre that brought me to tears and made the woman sitting beside me yelp like a Chihuahua when a ketchup-soaked rubber eyeball landed in her lap. A massive, forbidding iron door at a hilltop monastery in Rome with a keyhole which, when looked through at night, revealed the Duomo snugly framed and illuminated, about the size of a thumb, glowing like a nightlight. I stood in the kitchen reminiscing until it struck me that despite having sacrificed an irretrievable hour of packing, I no longer felt anxious. It was as if I’d just reentered my apartment and peeled a heavy backpack off my sweaty, sunburned shoulders, fresh from an exhilarating adventure with someone I loved and now understood better than ever. By spending time with my memories I’d given myself a mini vacation. I was renewed. It was that easy. This particular journal documented a pivotal time in my life—the summer that Europe worked its magic on me, activating a permanent, insatiable wanderlust. Two weeks after college graduation I was off again; I signed a contract to teach English as a Second Language in South Korea for one year (which turned into six), and teaching funded my excursions throughout Asia and other regions of the world. These experiences gave new shape and meaning to my life. Even now, residing in the United States (or “between travels”), I nurture and honor my inner nomad by surrounding myself with reminders of my journeys. On my wall hangs a painting given me by a prominent Manila artist. On my living room floor, a handmade basket from Costa Rica. Strung from my mirror, a silk butterfly sewn by a Khmer landmine victim in Phnom Penh. There’s a dzi bead from Tibet, a book of Aboriginal myths from Australia, and an Indonesian fertility statue named Richard Woodcock. I have a sake set from Kyushu, a portrait of me sketched by a Carcassonne street artist, and a pair of wooden wedding ducks my Korean students gave me (a hint that I was overdue to get married). Road souvenirs fill every room of my house, yet not one compares in value to my travel journals. Keeping a travel journal is a time-honored art form steeped with tradition and romance, a practice with countless iterations and formulas. Some people approach it like a religious discipline, sitting each afternoon with pen and notebook to dutifully chronicle the events of their day. They name every French chateau they visited, not to mention which queen slept in which bedroom when she was married to which king who was shtupping which mistress down which secret passageway. They keep thorough cost and distance inventories, list obscure facts and figures. They record all they’ve seen, done, and learned, unwilling to risk forgetting elevations and populations. I’ll be straight with you, I’m not these people. In the opening entry of one of the world’s most historic and controversial travel journals, Diary of the First Voyage, Christopher Columbus wrote, “Friday, 3 August 1492. Set sail from the bar of Saltes at 8 o'clock, and proceeded with a strong breeze till sunset, sixty miles or fifteen leagues south, afterwards southwest and south by west, which is the direction of the Canaries.” Say what you will about Columbus, he wasn’t sparing us any details. But historically speaking, Columbus was only doing his job. Travelogues were serious business back then, reserved for hard facts and pertinent information. Pioneers filled candlelight-inked diaries with precise accounts of crops and weather conditions, covering travel, weddings, cricket infestations, floods, childbirth, plague, death, and lunch with equal dispassion. Early American explorers kept track of celestial readings, temperature, and wind direction, sketching any unfamiliar flora and fauna they encountered. The point, back then, was documentation. By sharing knowledge you offered a gracious hand up to future travelers, sparing them the same rookie mistakes you made. L’Ingénieur Duplessis, who sailed up the Brazilian coast from the Galápagos, crossing the Atlantic to the Azores and then returning to France, wrote in 1701, “Why else keep a log if not to put it to use on future voyages back to the places already visited? If so much trouble is taken to write down everything considered necessary, is this not in order to sign the way for others or ourselves when by chance we are again confronted with the same regions and seasons?” Today we have YouTube for that. Today, with the world of information (and misinformation) quite literally at our Internet-happy fingertips, the traveler’s diary has become less resource and obligation, more self-expression. Yet despite its evolution, it has always been, in essence, a log of what not to forget. This does not, however, mean it need be solely information based. A travelogue will play whatever role you want it to, no questions asked or eyebrows raised—it can be a companion on solo journeys; a vault of memories to cherish through the decades; a portfolio of poetic passages and quirky anecdotes to publish (at least for friends’ enjoyment); an unruly scrapbook of tickets, programs, sugar packets, and your police report; a to-do list to occupy the rest of your life; a clean canvas for impromptu sketches; a mirror of self-discovery; or an instrument to awaken the mind. If we’re committed to honest investigation, the travel journal can be a cornerstone of growth and a catalyst for great work, providing a safe container for astonishing discoveries and the life lessons we take away from them. We write words in an empty book, and an inanimate object is transformed into a living, breathing memoir. In turn, as we write, the journal transforms us. It allows us to instantly process impressions, which leads to a more examined layer of consciousness in both the present and the future. It’s a relationship, and let me tell you, it’s no cheap one-night stand. Writing Away is a book about forging that relationship through keeping an awakened, intentional, creative travelogue, but above all, it’s a place where journey meets journal. The two words, which share an obvious root, jour, or “day” in French, both refer to how far one has gone in a day. The poet T.S. Elliot once said, “Only those willing to risk going too far can find out how far they can go.” How far are you willing to take your journey and journal? This book is dedicated to and intended for all travelers, and not only those striking out for distant shores. My aspiration is to embolden you to view everyday life as a journey and travel as an ongoing state of mind. The simple definition of travel is to go from one place to another, and this includes all forms of movement; you may be crisscrossing the planet or traversing the next city block—or not even leaving your physical space. You could be an armchair traveler or someone for whom travel is impossible. You might be a person who uses the written word to travel into yourself and out of your circumstances. This book is yours too. Likewise, just as the term “traveler” isn’t restricted to salty vagabonds with a lifetime supply of frequent flier miles and a phonebook-thick passport, “journal-keeper” isn’t exclusive to the handwritten self-chronicler. Although Writing Away emphasizes paper-and-pen journaling, it’s not an invite-only party that shuns bloggers who can’t produce a fountain pen and moleskine at the door. Almost all the suggestions, ideas, inspiration, and badgering packed into this book can be liberally copied and pasted for use in blogging, as well as poetry, fiction, journalism, and memoir. You may find you don’t click with all my ideas; I encourage you to experiment with those that appeal to you and take a crack at a few that don’t. Keep an open mind—after all, you can’t win if you don’t play. Also, skip around at will. When a certain chapter doesn’t do it for you, flip to the next. If one fundamental journaling truth exists, it’s that there’s no formula, no right or wrong. Be advised, I’m not here to teach you how to keep a journal; I’m just going to get you started and then navigate a little. In this book, I intend to take you an unorthodox journaling journey—a twisty back road through pristine wilderness, quiet hamlets, and chaotic cities with neon lights and dark, gritty back alleys. We’ll experience journaling in the moment with no thought toward results, simultaneously creating an evocative finished product. I will engage your sense of wonder, humor, compassion and imagination while guiding you to become acutely aware of your senses and sensitivities. I’ll implore you to slow down so you see more, and I’ll urge you to speed up so you think less. I will encourage you on occasion to destroy what you’ve just finished writing, but appeal to you to save every possible word. Together we’ll overcome worries, discuss long-term solutions, and brave the roadblocks and potholes. And all the while, we’ll make the world our personal muse. Ready? You’re actually driving, by the way. I call shotgun.

Writing Away and Goodreads

2009-04-10T19:22:00.000-07:00

Of all the social networking sites alive today, one of my favorites is Goodreads. It's techy enough to appeal to the masses, yet sneakily encourages the reading, buying, and sharing of something deliciously old school that happens, in my opinion, to be inching dangerously toward the "not hot" list: books.

And let me tell you. Books: still hot.

I've always loved Goodreads for the walk down Book Memory Lane. Scrolling through others' most beloved books reminds me of all those fabulous novels that have swallowed me whole over the years. Goodreads also introduces me to new authors and titles. But this week I love Goodreads more than ever, for two new reasons:

1. My book is on there and appears on random strangers' "to-read" lists. This brings me joy.

2. They give away free books. Check it out and enter to win some really fantastic new titles, including mine! Look here: http:www.goodreads.com/giveaway

Writing Away and Indie Book Sellers

2009-03-30T13:14:00.001-07:00

Want to support independent bookstores? Go to http://www.indiebound.org to pre-order your copy of Writing Away! Indiebound is a wonderful organization dedicated to supporting independent book sellers and will connect you to those in your area.

Writing Away and With a Measure of Grace

2009-02-04T11:58:00.006-08:00

The latest news on my new book, Writing Away: A Creative Guide to Awakening the Journal-writing Traveler, is that it comes out in May! It's available for pre-order now on Amazon.com.

I'll also be scheduling signings, readings, parties, and travel-journaling workshops to coincide with the launch, so stay tuned.

A number of people in San Francisco have asked recently where they can pick up a copy of my first book, With a Measure of Grace: the Story and Recipes of a Small Town Restaurant. It's available on Amazon.com and www.provechopress.com, but it's also now being carried at one of my favorite local bookstores, the Green Arcade, at Market and Gough. If you haven't been to the Green Arcade yet, drop by. The store specializes in books on the environment, politics, sustainability, the slow food movement, organics, urban planning, nature, and children's reading.

With a Measure of Grace is the cookbook and the stories of Hell's Backbone Grill — co-owned by my sister Blake and friend Jen— an award-winning, Zagat-rated, Buddhist-based, farm-to-table restaurant in a tiny, remote town in southern Utah.

Writing Away is a guide to keeping a travel journal as a practice. It shows how to slow down and commit to the present moment, nurture honesty and creativity, motivate the inner artist to discover creative material every step of the way, and it demonstrates how traveling — while keeping a journal along the way — is the world’s most valuable writing exercise.

Writing Away and What-Ifs

2008-11-10T12:10:00.004-08:00

As of last week, my first draft of WRITING AWAY is in to the publisher. Whew.

This week's assignment: finish my acknowledgments section, "Other Books to Read," and decide on the placement of quotes throughout the book. It doesn't sound like much, but the tasks feel important and vaguely daunting. So many people to thank--what if I forget someone? I've worked on this book for years, so I'm certain to overlook a person or two. And then, how can I write thank-yous before the project is even finished? What if someone swoops in heroically and saves the day three minutes before the book goes to press, and it's too late to add their name to the back pages? Do I send a bottle of wine, or monthly thank-you cards for the rest of my life to make up for it?

And the "Other Books to Read" section--consider all the extraordinary titles out there, multitudes of which I have yet to actually read. Is it fraudulent to name books I haven't personally read, just because I suspect they're great or friends have informed me that they're worthy? How will I live with myself if I forget the best book of all?

Then there are the quotations. So many outstanding ones related to travel and writing, and I can only choose thirty or so. What if I fail to include the best one of all, and stumble upon it after publication?

But then, if there's anything in this life that keeps us all going, trying, adventuring, it's the mysterious outcome, the glorious inability to predict future events. Imagine how tedious each day would be without a what-if to explore.

Writing Away

2008-10-22T12:56:00.004-07:00

Ten days left to finish edits on WRITING AWAY, and I find myself swinging between feeling revved up like a Deuce and running out of steam. The one thing I'm sure of is that writing a book on travel has fully activated my travel bug. I find myself daydreaming of places like Tunisia, Zanzibar, Istanbul, Mongolia, Oslo, Fiji, Nicaragua, Tuscany. Anywhere...just as long as it's "away." At night, I dream of movement. Last night, a U-Haul full of all my worldly belongings, which I left open--the back door of the U-Haul agape-- in a parking lot for days, yet nothing was taken. What does it mean?

My quote for the week:

The healthy wayfarer sitting beside the road scanning the horizon open before him, is he not the absolute master of the earth, the waters, and even the sky? What housedweller can vie with him in power and wealth? His estate has no limits, his empire no law. No work bends him toward the ground, for the bounty and beauty of the world are already his.

Isabelle Eberhardt
B. 1933

Yoga Journal Online

2008-10-13T11:08:00.003-07:00

My article about making bread as a form of moving meditation is now online. As soon as I am finished with this book, I plan to start baking again!

Reasons for Moving

2008-09-30T00:57:00.002-07:00

Lately I've been thinking a lot about movement, how we move through this world, and why, and how we we stay put, and why. It's baffling, really. Then tonight I reread one of my favorite poems. And I thought,

ah, yes.

Keeping Things Whole by Mark Strand

In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.

When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in
to fill the spaces
where my body's been.

We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole.

Travel Tips for Women 2008

2008-09-25T14:47:00.009-07:00

One of my favorite travel sites, Journeywoman.com, just published their annual top-fifty travel tips for women. They've included a journal-keeping tip from me, from my upcoming book, "Writing Away: A Creative Guide to Awakening the Journal-Keeping Traveler." You'll also find some other excellent advice on Journeywoman's top-fifty: reasonably priced hotels in Rome, an eco-restaurant in London, tips for cooking your own dinner on holiday and meeting the locals in Paris, the list goes on. It also highlights some fantastic new books for the traveling chica. Check it out! http://www.journeywoman.com

Writing Away

2008-09-24T02:53:00.001-07:00

This is how I feel today, after a good 16-hour (yes, that's what I said) writing day:

One never knows, one just endures, keeps the faith, burrows through the muck and tries to appreciate every sunset. And, if one must, one writes.
-- Frank Cotolo

Writing Away

2008-09-16T12:27:00.006-07:00

I signed my book deal a few weeks ago! "Writing Away, A Creative Guide to Awakening the Journal-Writing Traveler" will be released in the Spring by Travelers' Tales. For a sneak peak, check out the interview Rolf Potts did with me in my "links to published work" section.

Also, I plan to start regularly posting travel-journal tips, so check back.

Flour Power

2008-09-03T14:50:00.005-07:00

I came across a nice review of my September Yoga Journal article today in a blog called Raw Rach.

This is what the review said:

"I opened up my new issue of Yoga Journal this morning to find a fortuitously-timed article on baking and meditation. Lavinia Spalding writes about her entry into the world of bread-baking and how it drew her more deeply into her meditation practice:

"Always eager to incorporate more mindfulness into my daily life, I fancied the art of baking becoming a natural extension of my formal sitting practice. Even without having made bread before, I could easily intuit why people the world over regard the activity as meditation. Baking not only demands concentration and presence but also offers a bit of sanctuary. After all, who'd expect you to answer email, elbow deep in dough? Baking bread comes with its own "push, fold, turn, push, fold, turn" kneading mantra, and the undertaking itself - turning a sticky, formless gob of flour and water into a supple ball of dough - evokes the transformation of the mind from messy to manageable."

It's a sweet, almost poetic little rumination on the connections between body and breath, mind and spirit as found in the very embodied process of kneading bread, watching it rise, letting it rest in the "slow rises" and the "fundamental in-betweens" that are so necessary to making a loaf happen. Spalding goes on to quote several noted Zen priests and cookbook authors, who reiterate the intuitive connections between the breath and creating a product to which you can have little attachment to outcome, only patience and presence and good intentions.

A nice articulation of some of the thoughts I've been having these recent mornings spent elbow deep in bundts. The article's not yet online, so pick up a copy of the September issue at your nearest independent bookstore. Or just borrow mine."

Humble Beginnings

2007-11-18T12:54:00.001-08:00

At 4 am this morning, my roommate Cheryl stumbled from her room to go to the bathroom and ran into me, still on the living room couch with my i-Book in my lap, obsessing over my new blog/Web site. "Go to bed," she whispered, in a motherly tone. I followed her advice and finally turned in, not yet truly convinced that this Thing was done, this Thing I'd been mulling over for five or six months and--last night--tinkering with for five or six hours, this Thing I'd originally envisioned as a Web site that actually happened to be a Web log, this Thing I'd resisted for ages, with a fervor not unlike my own mother's initial scorning of the internet. (Now she sends me YouTube movies, virtual flower bouquets, and chain e-mails.) So here is this Thing, or the start of it, anyway. I've been told I need a Web site, a place to send people to read what I write. When I finally gave in and decided to get a Web site, I was told to get a blog instead. Since the blog was free, I chose option two. I don't know quite what this will turn into. But I hope it's someThing nice.