january 29, 2006
happy year of the dog:
and now let's eat...a dog! I've long been fascinated with dogs and the eating of them. This article in the San Francisco Chronicle gives a nice summation of dog-eating cultures around the world. Mamman Chi (that's a rough translation of "bon appetit" in Chinese).
january 28, 2006
where the editors are:
one sure way to up your odds of getting a story proposal accepted by a major travel magazine is to know what destinations the editors think are hot and then pitch accordingly. The travel trade magazine, Travel Weekly, recently sat down with the editors-in-chief of all the major travel mags (except for Conde Nast Traveler) and asked them what's hot. Read the transcripts here.
january 26, 2005
quote of the week:
I was in Mexico last week and I overheard a gruff-voiced, mustached American man ask a woman who was pouring him a cup of coffee:
"How do you say 'caffeine' in Mexican?"
She stared at him blankly and then said: "Caffeine."
January 25, 2005
roll the tape:
the recording of the panel discussion I recently took part in on travel is now online. Click here to download it.
january 11, 2005
telephone killed the radio star:
I'll be part of a panel of "travel experts" tomorrow night in a teleseminar. Huh? A what? Yep, you dial in and listen as Thomas Swick, Meryl Getline (who writes a travel column for USA Today), myself, and others talk about all things travel. Here's how you can listen in: go to AskTheTripChicks, pose a question for us, hit 'send,' and the telephone number (and pin code) will magically appear in your inbox. Thursday, Jan. 12, 9pm EST.
january 10, 2005
travel writers: disaster gadflies?
the venerable Thomas Swick, travel editor at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, is guest blogging on worldhum.com all this week. In this entry, he waxes about travel writers' proclivity for penning pieces on post-disaster areas and misfortune. I've talked at length about this in my travel writing classes, forecasting future travel stories of recent disasters that proclaim the place "re-born." I don't necessarily think it's a bad idea--after all, it's a built in angle--it's just become a travel writing cliche.
january 9, 2005
welcome to Ljubljana, the capital of "Slovakia":
i wrote this destination piece on Ljubljana a while back and, after a newspaper travel editor did some serious flirting with publishing the piece, it sat sad and unloved on my harddrive until I recently came across it. So, I gave it the G'Day-loving folks at bootsnall. Read it here.
JT Leroy update:
the real JT Leroy is...not JT Leroy at all. I wrote about this in an earlier entry, noting the New York magazine article claiming the elusive novelist (and sometimes travel writer) is just a literary hoax. The New York Times, who's assigned Leroy travel stories in the past, started doing some research of its own and found the "wigs and sunglasses" who has been posing as Leroy is just that: a poser (who happens to be female). This is getting fascinating. Read The Times article here.
december 31, 2005
putting us all on trial:
in his latest installment on worldhum, Rolf Potts walks across Andorra and then teaches us how to write a proper travel story and get laid. As usual, Rolf does a masterful job at weaving creative story structure, great writing technique and, underneath it all, taking a jab at the (unfortunately common) lazy, cliche-laden, and surface-level side of a lot of travel articles. Moreover, he demonstrates how easy it is slip into this type of narration:
You don't want to resort to the usual clichés, however-the "jagged ridges, the "crystal clear lakes, the "quaint chateaux perched on hillsides"--so you check your notebook. Here, you have scribbled observations from the hike, such as "Yellow frogs, brown spiders, orange butterflies, and "French hikers carry what appear to be ski poles, and (to your own chagrin) "Crystal clear mountain lakes perched below jagged brown ridges.
december 21, 2005
papa's got a brand new mag:
James Truman, who left his post as the top dog at the Conde Nast empire earlier this year, is apparently planning to launch---wait for it---a travel magazine. Hooray! It's always good news when a new travel magazine hits the streets. The realization of this is a long way off as Truman hasn't even hired an editor in chief yet. Stay tuned...
december 9, 2005
i yam what i eat:
my friend Ganda has a weekly section on her blog where she asks people she knows to answer a few questions about their eating habits. I'm up this week, following the oh-so-curious Mr. David Byrne who eats pad Thai and pumpkin pie for breakfast. Read it here.
december 5, 2005
call for submissions: Rolf Potts gives word that everyone's favorite travel editor (and all around nice guy), Don George is already putting together another anthology of travel tales for Lonely Planet. George's recent anthology, By the Seat of My Pants, has been getting a lot of press lately (and, if I can self aggrandize for a moment, includes a piece by Deborah Steg that was workshopped in my travel writing class at Gotham). The new anthology, called Tales From Nowhere, is best summed up by Mr. Potts. Click here for all the details.
december 2, 2005
the new blah, blah:
i've done it: I've proclaimed Prague the new Prague. it's about time. After going from Budapest to Krakow to Ljubljana to Zagreb (and even, in jest, New Prague, Minnesota), I had to do it--if only as a literary device. Read it here on epicurious.
travel writing and its (dis)contents
december 2005-january 2006