Thursday, April 17th, 2008
A quick review, in case you’re just in: Angela Nickerson as part of her virutal book tour, agreed to do a “micro workshop” on Nerd’s Eye View. She provided the prompt, you provided the work. Here’s here take on what you’ve done - and many, many thanks for your participation! I’ve linked to the posts below, but I’ve left the pictures on the “home” sites. Click through to see the original posts, with photos, and to meet some interesting travel bloggers.
I’ll hand it over to Angela, now.
First, many, many thanks to those of you who participated in today’s travel writing workshop. What a delight to read such good writing and to visit such interesting – and diverse – places. Your submissions are a testament to the richness that comes from diverging from the beaten path. Thank you!
Ok, to the task at hand…
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Monday, March 17th, 2008
It wasn’t just Columbus, you know. It was Cortez and DeSoto and Ponce de Leon and some French fop named Ribault and any number of other explorers and conquistadors. They sailed across the Atlantic fueled by lust for gold and their own obsessive convictions, landed on the North American continent, and proceeded to make life hell for anyone that was already there. Sometimes they started out okay, but instead of diplomacy and community building, they opted to steal food and supplies from the natives when their own imported supplies ran thin. In general, the lead up time to Columbus’s (equally messy) arrival in the “New World” was bad news for the locals.
You knew that, of course, but probably not in the exquisite detail that’s currently knocking around in my head. I’m reading “A Voyage Long and Strange” - a refresher course in pre-Columbus North American history. Yeesh, what a disastrous period for aboriginal populations. Yeesh. (more…)
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