I’ve always had a soft spot for World Hum, they published my first travel story, after all. I submitted it not knowing I would not get paid — a mistake I’ve only made one time. A year later, maybe two, they sent me a check for that first story — and they’ve run a few pieces of what I think are some of my best writing. For a while, I covered Hawaii pretty regularly for them — that was a terrific gig.
The team was amazing; Jim Benning, Mike Yessis, and Eva Holland led us in producing consistently top notch work. Later, when the site slowed, Jim commissioned my Letters to Commander Hadfield for SKYE (we remember how that ended, right?) and Mike commissioned my recent Arizona stories for MapQuest. Eva, well, we end up in each others’ kitchens, not often enough, but it’s always great. World Hum put me in touch with some of my very favorite people in the world of smart, literary travel writing — inspirational, ethical, hard working, and damned fine writers.
The site went through a complicated relationship with the Travel Channel and when it regained its autonomy, Jim asked me if I would like to do some blogging for him again — yes, it’s paid, no, it’s not much — and I said yes. I think it’s valuable to participate in a forum where writers have continually swept awards for the quality of their work, and I would love to see the site return to its former vibrancy. To that end, I’m posting a couple of times a month about things that catch my eye at the intersection of travel and world culture. I hope you’ll read, share, comment, and generally support the best travel writing on the web. Sending things you read that you think I’d like would be great, too.
And in case you think it’s all highbrow stuff, nope. My latest? The captain has turned off the “No Drinking” sign.
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I was once a big fan of WorldHum and thought of it as the best travel writing on the web. Revered it. In the process, I also admired and followed many writers there, including Eva Holland and you. Reading stories like http://www.worldhum.com/features/travel-stories/the_man_at_the_bus_stop_20071001/ amazed me and made me wonder how WH comes up with such incredible stories that no one else seem to be capable of producing.
At some point in time, the website appeared to have lost it all. I hope it can come back to its glory days again. Perhaps acquisition by TravelChannel was a milestone that did not go well; I do not know. I continued to follow WordHum long after I stopped admiring it. But the big blow came when a story agreed by many as fictitious (very likely full of factual errors, much of it seemed fabricated than accidental) was not only published (which is alright), but the eds went to a great length to defend the story and snub the readers’ apprehensions instead of coming back with some research and facts (which was not ok by any standards). That was the last story I read on the site. (See http://www.worldhum.com/features/travel-stories/crawling-toward-bangalore-20130108/)
Now that I read your post, I am going back to following it again. Hopefully it will be back to its glory days. In the interest of WH as well as in the interest of readers like us who crave for those stories that we once drooled on.
I may disappoint you — I rather liked Clay’s story. It’s funny, well written, and it expresses some of my own memories of the chaos of traveling by train in India in the early 1980s. That said, I hope you won’t let your disagreement with one writer’s travel memories — he states that this story took place 20 years ago, so doubtless the current state of India’s rail is very different today — stand in the way of your future enjoyment of the site.
Thank you Pam. The writing is good, I wouldn’t deny that at all. And I can live with disagreements, so no disappointments there either. 🙂
Facts are of paramount importance to me in travel writing. I have been seeing/using Indian Railways for more than 20 years and I know it hasn’t changed and hasn’t become any faster. They are as fast (slow) then as they are today. There are a few other clues in the story about exaggerations but let’s leave it there. The arguments have been already made on the WH page. And I was more troubled by Jim’s defence even more than the story itself.
But whatever.. I am going to keep an eye on WH updates. So far, enjoyed the part about getting drunk in the plane. Thank you.