It would be wrong to say I’d done nothing in January. We went to Vancouver and to Richmond for my birthday and to do research for a story. I have been jamming, hard, with the band, and doing my share of woodshedding, and learning how to say things like “jamming hard and woodshedding” without sounding like a total tool. I’ve been struggling to write two travel stories, one that finally snapped in to place and one that just refuses to show me the way to the end.… continued…
I wrote this three years ago. It’s set to publish automatically and when that happens, I’ll be in Nairobi, Kenya, joining a safari group. It’s weird to say that and to follow it up with this memorial to my own trivial September 11 losses. Clearly, I’m not staying home, but my anger remains — along with a tiny corner of fear and the insignificant scars of my broken heart.
It is easy, with a handful of years behind us, to say that on September 11, 2001, everything changed.… continued…
I really hate the body scanner machines at the airport. My introduction to them this year was extremely uncomfortable — a large male officer used a rather sharp tone with me and instructed me, repeatedly, not to look at him. “Why not?” I wondered. “Why does it matter where my eyes are when the machine can look right through me?”
It’s patchy, the use of scanners is; my first time through the body scanner was also my last.… continued…
As I unpack and repack in preparation for Book Passage, a travel writing conference in California, I’m delighted to have a guest post from Eva Holland on why such events are worth the money and the bother.
In 2007, I bet it all on Book Passage.
I was an aspiring travel writer fresh off a British graduate degree and a European backpacking tour, with a student loan and credit card debt for souvenirs. During my time in England I’d gotten my first clip – a story in my hometown paper, the Ottawa Citizen, about a “Trainspotting” themed walking tour of Edinburgh – and now that I was back home in Canada I wanted to take a serious shot at writing full time.… continued…
More webby criticism. I’ve had quite a bit of thinky free time. Not interested in my opinionated bloviating on blogging? How’s about an odd little museum in Auburn, Washington, instead?
I’ve read a significant number of posts by bloggers saying, essentially, here’s a bunch of stuff I need if you’re going to invite me on your trip. Or, alternatively, here are a bunch of tactics you, blogger, can follow to get a free trip. And often, that stuff irritates the daylights out of me.… continued…
