Lavinia Spalding

Submission Guidelines for The Best Women’s Travel Writing, Volume 13

2024-06-18T21:28:24Z

Submission Deadline: September 30th, 2024.

Submit HERE (and click the link in the right navigation area that reads: Stories for Anthologies)

“In story after story,” Andrew McCarthy wrote about volume 11 of The Best Women’s Travel Writing, “the refreshing absence of bluster and bravado, coupled with the optimism necessary for bold travel, create a unifying narrative that testifies to the personal value and cultural import of leaving the perceived safety of home and setting out into the wider world.”

You can read the whole review here, and you can submit an essay for consideration to the next volume, coming out in 2025. This will be the thirteenth volume in the series, and the seventh I’ve had the honor of editing. Please find all the guidelines below.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Please send us your best true stories about travel throughout the world for our award-winning series, The Best Women’s Travel Writing. We’re looking for the full range of experience: adventurous, mystical, funny, poignant, culinary, cross-cultural, transformational, romantic, illuminating, frightening, grim, sexy, spiritual—you name it. Stories should reflect the unique alchemy that occurs when you enter unfamiliar territory and begin to see the world differently as a result.

Submission Deadline: September 30th, 2024.

Previously published essays are OK, provided you control all rights to the story. Please check that you retain rights, before submitting. Multiple submissions are also OK.

Length & Type of Story

We strongly (really, really strongly) encourage you to read the books, as there’s no better way to understand what we’re looking for.

Remuneration:

$100 honorarium, one 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:

PLEASE SUBMIT HERE.

Editors of magazines, websites and literary journals may email essay nominations to lavinia@laviniaspalding.com. (Please do not email directly unless you are an editor nominating contributors’ essays published in the past several years.)

Make sure to include on your essay all of your contact information, plus a 3- to 10-line bio about yourself.

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. Essays not selected will be considered for future Travelers’ Tales books, unless author explicitly requests otherwise. We collect year round for this collection, so if you miss the deadline, your story will be considered for the following edition. Also, In addition to publishing books, we like to promote the best travel writing we can find and do so in the Travelers’ Tales Editors’ Choice section and elsewhere on the website. By submitting your story to Travelers’ Tales, you agree that Travelers’ Tales may post it on the 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 Travelers’ Tales to post your story, please indicate this clearly at the beginning of your submission.

If your story is selected for publication, we will contact you regarding permission and payment.

***Due to the volume 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.***

Pelican Kisses, Publications, Podcast, and Upcoming Workshops

2024-03-27T16:37:26Z

I just returned from teaching a weeklong writing workshop in the car-free town of Yelapa, Mexico with Deep Travel Workshops. While there, I noticed myself becoming increasingly attuned to sensory experiences. It started with the calls of seabirds in the early morning. It continued with the drizzle of tartar sauce on a fish taco, the crunch of seeds in a passionfruit margarita, and the sweetness of chilled avocado pie. Before sleep, it was the baritone rumble of waves in the Bay of Banderas. And later in the week, the smell of wild sage rubbed between my fingers on the hike to a waterfall.

It’s not surprising it started with the birds, since I’ve been a novice birder for a few years. But Yelapa turned me obsessive. From a beach chair inside my open-air casita, I spent hours bringing the birds closer to me through my binoculars. There were brown pelicans, egrets, ibis, stilts, willets, gulls, magnificent frigatebirds, and herons (tri-color, night, and great). And on the hike to the waterfall, a great kiskadee.

Walking barefoot on the beach one afternoon, I felt something brush against my hat and heard a flutter by my ear. I looked up to see a giant brown pelican swooping away from me.

A man was walking toward me. “Did you see that?” I asked him. “Did that just happen?”

He nodded. “It definitely got some height on you.”

When I told my students later, one said, “You got a pelican kiss!”

I often feel disconnected from nature when I’m home in New Orleans, as I spend my days teaching on Zoom and writing and editing on a computer. I tend to have my head down a lot. But in Yelapa, nature came to me. Its wings tapped me on the head and said, look up.

Now that I’m home, I’m trying to do more of that.

I’m looking ahead, as well…

This May, I’ll be teaching in yet another magical setting: an agriturismo on the Ionian Seacoast, in Sicily. I’m working with two phenomenal women, Colette Hannahan and Michelle Titus. I’ll lead writing classes, Colette will lead painting and meditation, and Michelle will lead movement (yoga, Qi gong) and meditation. A few spaces are still available.

I’m also offering two workshops this summer: an online class on writing the Modern Love essay through Off Assignment’s Masters Series courses (Wednesday afternoons in July), and a morning workshop called “Writing the World” with my dear friend, Marcia DeSanctis, at the annual Book Passage Travel Writers and Photographers Conference.

Meanwhile, Studio Unfurl, the online creative community I started with my dear friends Colette and Karen is well underway, with interwoven art and writing classes, guest chats, prompt studios, mentorship, and more. A waitlist is open for our second semester.

And my friend Kelly and I have been hard at work producing season three of our travel storytelling podcast, There She Goes! We have some stunning essays coming out soon.

As for publications, a huge career highlight for me has been editing The Best Women’s Travel Writing. I’ve edited the last six collections, and I’m so pleased that Travelers’ Tales has asked to edit Volume 13, as well. It will be published in 2025, and I’m accepting submissions now. You can send your true travel essays here. (There’s no deadline yet, but I’ll post submission guidelines on social media and my website soon.)

I was also delighted to have a micro-essay published last month in one of my favorite literary journals, River Teeth.

And I have another (very) personal essay coming out (very) soon, online and in print. It’s a story I’ve been sitting on for 30 years, and I couldn’t be happier that it’s found a (very) good home: the “Modern Love” column in The New York Times! I’m still pinching myself to have a second Modern Love essay accepted.

I think that’s all for now.

I’m flying off again in a few hours, for spring break with my husband and son. I’m packing my binoculars, of course. I’ll keep looking up. I hope you will, too.

Lavinia

There She Goes Podcast

2021-07-29T15:47:50Z

Hey, I’m a podcaster now!

I’ll be honest, I didn’t see that one coming.

Here’s how it happened: In the fall of 2020, in the middle of pandemic lockdown, Kelly Chappie, a lovely woman I’d met once, texted me to say she had seen this instagram post, in which Colette Hannahan paints while I read part of my intro to The Best Women’s Travel Writing. She said it had inspired an idea for a project. (You can listen to that whole story here). She wanted to know if I was on board, and, as I am wont to do when folks propose exciting new projects, I said yes and got right on board! And now we’ve wrapped season one of There She Goes! The gist of our podcast is:

Travel Stories told by the women who wrote them.

No interviews, no chit-chat. Just great storytelling by women travelers—their words and experiences, told in their own voices.

Pretty sweet, right?

Season one was amazing. Kelly and I found we worked together beautifully and really enjoyed the process of becoming friends through creating a podcast together. We aired fifteen episodes (seventeen if you include two bonus episodes) featuring incredible storytellers such as Natalie Baszile, author of Queen Sugar and We are Each Other’s Harvest, taking us to Louisiana; Faith Adiele, author of Meeting Faith, taking us to Thailand; Marcia DeSanctis, author of 100 Places in France Every Woman Should Go, taking us to France; Maggie Downs, author of Brave Enough, taking us to Uganda; Mathangi Subramanian, author of A People’s History of Heaven, taking us to India; Suzanne Roberts, author of Almost Somewhere and Bad Tourist, taking us to Greece; and Ann Leary, author of The Good House and The Children, taking us to Italy.

And many more!!!!

We also got some stellar reviews and a bunch of five-star reviews, which made us super happy, and we were featured on Podbean’s Storytelling Podcast Week, which was a lot of fun. I participated in a storytelling salon, where you can hear me reading this essay from Off Assignment.

I hope you’ll give There She Goes a listen (and a five-star rating and review, if you like it, pleeaaaase!) on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you go to get your podcasts! It’s available on all major platforms. And don’t forget to follow us on instagram, too!

Call for Submissions: The Best Women’s Travel Writing, Volume 12

2019-08-20T18:33:29Z

Please note that this is an old call for submissions. If you are looking for the newest call for submissions (volume 13) ... go here.

I’m so happy to announce I’ll be editing another volume of The Best Women’s Travel Writing, published by Travelers’ Tales. This will be the twelfth volume in the series, and the sixth I’ve had the honor of editing. Previous collections have included Maya Angelou, Anne Lamott, Barbara Kingsolver, Susan Orlean, Frances Mayes, Jane Smiley, Francine Prose, Ann Hood, Patricia Hampl, Kira Salak, Faith Adiele, Peggy Orenstein, Natalie Baszile, and hundreds more—far too many notable names to list. At the same time, we’ve published the work of countless outstanding emerging writers. The anthology has won many awards, and the most recent volume received a lovely review by Andrew McCarthy in The New York Times. “In story after story,” he wrote, “the refreshing absence of bluster and bravado, coupled with the optimism necessary for bold travel, create a unifying narrative that testifies to the personal value and cultural import of leaving the perceived safety of home and setting out into the wider world.”

THE SUBMISSION DEADLINE IS JANUARY 31, 2020, and the anthology will come out in the fall of 2020. Stories can be previously published, as long as you retain all rights. Please find all the guidelines below!

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Please send us your best true stories about travel throughout the world for our award-winning series, The Best Women’s Travel Writing. We’re looking for the full range of experience: adventurous, mystical, funny, poignant, culinary, cross-cultural, transformational, romantic, illuminating, frightening, grim, sexy, spiritual—you name it. Stories should reflect the 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, but to get a sense of what we generally publish, please take a look at The Best Women’s Travel Writing Volume 11, The Best Women’s Travel Writing Volume 10, The Best Women’s Travel Writing Volume 9, The Best Women’s Travel Writing Volume 8, 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.

We strongly (really, really strongly) encourage you to read the books, as there’s no better way to understand what we’re looking for.

Remuneration:

$100 honorarium, one 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:

Please submit via the Travelers’ Tales website, here: www.travelerstalesstories.com AND send in a word doc with all your contact info on the page to lavinia@laviniaspalding.com.

PLEASE make sure to 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.

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.

Essays not selected will be considered for future Travelers’ Tales books, unless author explicitly requests otherwise. We collect year round for this collection, so if you miss the deadline, your story will be considered for the following edition. Also, 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 website. 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.

***Due to the volume 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.***

Playing by Heart: my first feature for AFAR Magazine

2019-08-02T03:55:12Z

I’ve never been more excited for a magazine story to come out. This story, a feature in the July/August issue of AFAR magazine, is deeply meaningful to me, and I’ll admit I’m really proud of it. AFAR sent me to Spain to pursue an old abandoned childhood passion, which resulted in the incredible opportunity to study with three of the top female flamenco guitarists in Spain. I traveled to Madrid, Granada, and Barcelona, and I will never forget my experience, which was truly life-changing. I hope you enjoy the story, which you can read here.

This Immeasurable Place

2018-03-04T01:55:17Z

I’m beyond thrilled to announce that I’ve co-written another cookbook with Blake Spalding (my sister) and Jen Castle (my soul sister), the amazing chef-owners of Hell’s Backbone Grill.

This Immeasurable Place: Food and Farming from the Edge of Wilderness came out in late November of 2017, and within weeks it was named one of the best books of 2017 on NPR’s On Point! We immediately sold out of our first print run, then printed more, and now the book is back in stock. It’s the true definition of a labor of love, this one. And I must say: it’s the most beautiful book I’ve ever been part of.

Here’s a fabulous review of it on Every Day with Rachael Ray...

And here’s more about it:

Eighteen years ago, Blake Spalding and her business partner Jen Castle had a vision: they wanted to start a women-owned, organic, farm-to-table, Buddhist-principled, restaurant in a town called Boulder. Today, this vision sounds like the culinary zeitgeist. Back then, everyone thought they were nuts—mostly because the Boulder they wanted to do it in was Boulder, Utah, a tiny (population 200), old-fashioned, conservative Mormon ranching community that also happened to be the most remote town in the lower 48 states.

But it turned out Spalding and Castle weren’t nuts. Hell’s Backbone Grill and Farm is now Boulder’s largest employer, with a 6.5-acre organic farm and a loyal, national following. The restaurant has received loads of national press, from Oprah to the New York Times to Bon Appetit and the Wall Street Journal, and has won numerous awards, including “Best Restaurant in Utah” and “Best Restaurant in the Rockies.” For the past two years, Spalding and Castle have been James Beard Award semifinalists.

This Immeasurable Place is much more than a cookbook. It’s 288 pages of delicious recipes, stunning images by world-renowned photographer Ave Kvale, and stories about the extraordinary people who make up the restaurant community, and the immeasurable place surrounding the restaurant—the now-threatened Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.

Here’s what people are saying about it ...

“The wisdom found in the pages of this beautiful and surprising book is immeasurable. It’s wisdom from the edge, from one of the most glorious hidden kitchens there is…. Land, food, family, stewardship, and spirit all course through these tempting, gorgeous pages. A book that feeds us on so many levels.”—Davia Nelson, NPR’s Kitchen Sisters

”... Filled with remarkable recipes and essays, it breathed life back into my radical, sometimes flagging hope for humanity, and is as inspiring as it is mouthwatering. We need this book now more than ever.”—Elissa Altman, author of Poor Man’s Feast

“Blake Spalding and Jen Castle pioneered farm-to-table cooking, creating the Rocky Mountain West’s first women-chef-owned restaurant with full-scale farm. The authors lay out the seasons of the restaurant with humor, gentleness, and joy, but underpin it with their steely, unflinching resolve. Buy this as a cookbook and a keepsake of the truly immeasurable spirit of this community and the land.” —Cheryl Alters Jamison, four-time James Beard award winner

“Blake Spalding and Jen Castle are alchemists, truly changing the world through their hands, their hearts, their farm, their food. In community, everything is possible.Theirs is a leadership of love.” —Terry Tempest Williams

“As this book shows, horizon and history can’t be separated from the majesty of what we grow and prepare. Among hallowed lands, creators Jen Castle and Blake Spalding channel a culinary spirituality, and through these beautiful pages, the warmth and love abiding at Hell’s Backbone Grill.” —Jacki Lyden, former NPR host

Contact: hbg@hellsbackbonegrill.com

The Best Women’s Travel Writing: New York Times Book Review

2017-11-18T19:57:28Z

I’ll be honest: I never thought I’d see a book of mine reviewed in The New York Times. I wanted to see it happen, of course—who wouldn’t?—I just never thought I would. But happily, I thought wrong, because the wonderful actor-director-travel-writer Andrew McCarthy penned a glowing review of it! So now, I’ve officially seen it all.

Here’s what he said:

THE BEST WOMEN’S TRAVEL WRITING, Volume 11: True Stories From Around the World (Travelers’ Tales, paper, $19.95). For more than 20 years, Travelers’ Tales has been publishing books that might best be described as the literary equivalent of a group of travelers sitting around a dim cafe, sipping pints or prosecco and trading their best stories. With more than a hundred titles currently in print, this publisher has carved out a valuable niche in the travel world.

The latest book’s editor, Lavinia Spalding, hungry for travelers who “go with an open heart” and have “the inclination to practice human kindness, a sincere intention to build pathways of understanding and a willingness to be transformed,” read nearly 500 submissions before settling on the 31 stories that make up this diverse collection.

In the opener, Zora O’Neill finds herself drawn away from a resort’s placid blue waters and toward the newly formed refugee camps that have sprung up on the Greek island she and her family visit every year. Like so many of the stories here, “On the Migrant Trail” is told with simple grace. O’Neill’s account demonstrates once again that history’s first draft is often written by the intrepid traveler.

In the opener, Zora O’Neill finds herself drawn away from a resort’s placid blue waters and toward the newly formed refugee camps that have sprung up on the Greek island she and her family visit every year. Like so many of the stories here, “On the Migrant Trail” is told with simple grace. O’Neill’s account demonstrates once again that history’s first draft is often written by the intrepid traveler.

In a different vein, Samantha Schoech offers a hilarious yet ultimately disquieting yarn about spending a week in Venice — sans children and husband — with a gal pal and having perhaps too fine a time. Pam Mandel, in a poignant essay, deals with grief in — of all places — Waikiki. And a trip to Singapore reminds Abbie Kozolchyk of that most important of all travel maxims — call your mother. In story after story, the refreshing absence of bluster and bravado, coupled with the optimism necessary for bold travel, create a unifying narrative that testifies to the personal value and cultural import of leaving the perceived safety of home and setting out into the wider world.

The Best Women’s Travel Writing, Volume 11

2017-03-31T20:46:44Z

The Best Women’s Travel Writing, Volume 11, published by Travelers’ Tales and edited by yours truly, will be in bookstores May 2017!

This is the fifth volume of the series I’ve edited, and I’m immensely proud of it. This year I read nearly five hundred submissions to choose the final thirty-one stories. The essays are, as always, wildly diverse in theme and location—they’re compelling and complicated, poignant and scary, exciting and irreverent, adventurous and quiet, beautiful and hilarious, romantic and solitary, heartbreaking and heartwarming. They tell of places like California and Cuba, Switzerland and Singapore, Iran and Iceland, Montana and Mexico and Mongolia and Mali, our own back yards and some of the farthest, most extreme corners of the world. They are the personal stories we can’t help but collect when we travel, stories of reaching out to embrace the unfamiliar and creating cross-cultural connections while learning more about ourselves as human beings.

The collection is available for pre-order now, from the usual online outlets or from your favorite independent bookstore. Please look for news of readings and events on the Best Women’s Travel Writing Facebook page. (Oh, and from April 7-June 1, you can also enter to win a copy here):

Here’s a little teaser…

In The Best Women’s Travel Writing, Volume 11, you’ll:

—go scuba diving with sharks in Palau

—cook for Syrian refugees in Greece

—be the first American to play pro basketball in the Czech Republic

—anger a nun in Ethiopia

—go whitewater rafting on the Nile in Uganda.

—help slaughter a pig in Hungary

—realize your limits of filial piety in Singapore

—seek healing at the hands of a witchdoctor in Mexico

—feast on rancid food in Iceland

—avoid hypothermia by spooning in Mongolia

—fall in love in Nepal

... and much, much more.

Thanks for reading! Hope to see you at a BWTW event!

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: The Best Women’s Travel Writing, Volume 11

2016-07-26T17:55:13Z

* Submissions to the Best Women’s Travel Writing, Volume 11 are closed, but we read for anthologies all year round. To submit to next year’s collection (and other Travelers’ Tales titles) please submit your stories at www.travelerstalesstories.com

I’m totally thrilled to be editing another volume of The Best Women’s Travel Writing, scheduled for publication in the spring of 2017 by Travelers’ Tales. This will be the fifth volume I’ve had the honor of editing. Being involved in the series is one of the most rewarding parts of my life. Each year I read hundreds and hundreds of essays in order to select the thirty-some that ultimately make it into the collection. And I have started reading this year’s submissions, and I’m excited! But I need more! The submission deadline is August 31st, so please send me your stories. (It’s ok if they’ve already been published, provided you retain all rights. Here are all the submission guidelines. I look forward to hearing from you!

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Women writers, please send us your best true stories about travel throughout the world for our annual series, The Best Women’s Travel Writing. We’re looking for the full range of experience: adventurous, mystical, funny, poignant, cuisine-related, cross-cultural, transformational, funny, illuminating, frightening, grim, you name it. Stories should reflect the 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, I recommend a range of 1,000-5,000 words. To get a sense of what we are looking for, please take a look at The Best Women’s Travel Writing Volume 10, The Best Women’s Travel Writing Volume 9, The Best Women’s Travel Writing Volume 8, 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.

I strongly (like, really, really strongly) encourage you to read the books, as it’s the best way to understand what we’re looking for.

Remuneration:

$100 honorarium, one 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:

Send your submissions in a doc or docx file to lavinia@laviniaspalding.com AND via the Travelers’ Tales website, here: www.travelerstalesstories.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.

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.

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. Also, 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 website. 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.

***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.***

Introducing the great Edith Wharton

2014-05-21T16:54:51Z

One of my all-time favorite books is The House of Mirth, by Edith Wharton, and one of my all-time favorite quotes is also by her: “Life is always a tightrope or a featherbed. Give me the tightrope.” So it follows that one of my all-time greatest honors was writing the introduction for the newly reissued edition of her classic travelogue, A Motor-Flight Through France.

Here’s a quick description, from publisher Restless Books:

A trailblazer among American women at the turn of the century, Edith Wharton set out in the newly invented “motor-car” to explore the cities and countryside of France. As the Whartons embark on three separate journeys through the country in 1906 and 1907, accompanied first by Edith’s brother, Harry Jones, and then by Henry James, Edith is enamored by the freedom that this new form of transport has given her. With a keen eye for architecture and art, and the engrossing style that would later earn her a Pulitzer Prize in fiction, Wharton writes about places that she previously “yearned for from the windows of the train.”

Now published for the first time as an illustrated eBook with photographs reproduced directly from the 1908 first edition, and newly introduced by acclaimed travel writer Lavinia Spalding, the Restless Books edition of A Motor-Flight Through France will inspire current and future generations of readers and adventurers.

And here’s a short excerpt from my intro:

“Although we know Wharton best for her novels and novellas—she penned twenty-one, including such classics as The House of Mirth, The Age of Innocence, The Custom of the Country, and Ethan Frome—she also wrote luminously about travel, publishing three travel memoirs and many articles. Her close friend Henry James (who accompanied her on one of her motor-flights through France) nicknamed her “pendulum-woman” because she crossed the Atlantic so often—as many as seventy times in her life. Wharton wrote that she had “an incurable passion for the road” and once told a friend that she planned to “eat the world leaf by leaf.”

Unlike many other wealthy wanderers of her time, Wharton was not content with ordinary tourism; it was the unbeaten path that called her. Her friend Percy Lubbock wrote that she “rustled unhesitatingly” into locked churches, closed galleries, and palaces where visitors were not normally allowed, in search of “hidden rarities, lost treasures and forgotten shrines.” Long before the invention of the automobile, she traveled by almost any means available—bicycle, train, mule, donkey cart, funicular, or on foot—in pursuit of obscure sites. Everything changed in 1903, when Wharton took her first ride in a motorcar in Italy and discovered her ideal mode of transportation. “I swore then and there,” she wrote, “that as soon as I could make money enough I would buy a motor.”

A Motor-Flight Through France is the first release in the Restless Women Travelers series, from new digital publisher Restless Books. The series celebrates and (re)introduces some of the most important travelogues written by women, with introductions by some modern women travel writers. And I’m thrilled to announce that A Motor-Flight Through France is now available to download from Amazon, Apple, Barnes and Noble, and Kobo, for only $3.99!

When I began doing research about Wharton for the introduction, filling my head every day with her words and stories, reading her autobiography, two biographies, articles, and as many letters as I could get ahold of, I became completely intimidated by her. She was the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize, the first woman to be given an honorary Doctor of Letters degree from Yale, the first woman awarded the gold medal for literature from the American National Institute of Arts and Letters. She was nominated for the Nobel Prize for lifetime achievement in literature. She wrote forty-eight books, many of them bestsellers. The list goes on and on. The woman was, to put it mildly, formidable. She was also known for her razor-sharp wit, and the fact that she did not suffer fools.

Countless fascinating stories exist about Wharton, but one of my favorites is this: She hated the illustrations that Scribner included in The House of Mirth, so she razored them out of her own personal copy, and crossed out the name of the illustrator on the title page. Hearing this story, I found myself wondering, if we’d met, would she have liked me or hated me or tolerated me or ignored me? Would she have crossed out my name on the title page, too? But the more I got to know her, the more I fell in love. She’s immensely inspiring, as a writer, a traveler, and a woman. Edith Wharton was rebellious, courageous, brilliant, intrepid, and just basically hell-bent on doing whatever she damn well pleased, during an era in which women of her societal position were really just supposed to behave. In the end I decided that if she’d had the chance to know me, she would have liked me, because I would not have stopped until I’d made her like me.

There’s so much more to tell about her. I hope you’ll download a copy of the new edition of A Motor-Flight Through France, and—I’m really excited about this—join me in the Berkshires on Sunday, June 22 for a very special book launch party! Restless Books is hosting the launch for A Motor-Flight Through France and the Restless Women Travelers series. The event will take place at The Mount—Edith Wharton’s gorgeous mansion (see photo below, and insert yourself into the picture). Beginning at 5:30, there will be a short reading, conversation, and cocktails on the patio overlooking Wharton’s gardens, with fellow readers, writers, and travelers. I’ll be there, and I hope you will, too!