Much to report about BWTW 2010! First off, contributor Heather Poole is raffling off two free, autographed copies on her Gadling column, Galley Gossip. Simply add a comment to her post by 5 p.m. EST on Friday, April 2, and you’ll be registered to win.

Our Iowa City contributors (Kendra Greene, Marisa Handler, Jen Percy, and me, shown here) were recently featured on Joe Fassler’s “The Lit Show.” Listen to our travel banter here.

And finally, the lovely Eva Holland over at WorldHum just posted our interview about the anthology. Here’s an excerpt:

Do you see “women’s travel writing” as meaning something more specific than “travel writing by a woman”? In other words, do you think there are some travel stories that have greater resonance for female readers?

When my guidebook 100 Places Every Woman Should Go came out in 2007, I spent a year criss-crossing the nation, holding “Traveling Sola” workshops for women. I did so because women tend to have different concerns about safety and security than men, and such fears are best allayed by other women.

While talking with these women, however, I realized that we also tend to have different motives for traveling. Some of us are called to the road because of a break-up or a death; others to mark a special birthday or other rite of passage. Many women see traveling as a metaphor for life: If we haven’t yet done it, we haven’t yet lived. Stakes are high when you travel with this sort of mindset, as you are simultaneously journeying to your own interior. Such “journeys of the self” are how I define the concept of “women’s travel writing.” They are expressions of womanhood, and all the pain and the beauty therein.

Travel writing has traditionally been a male-dominated genre. Why do you think that is, and do you see that changing anytime soon?

For starters, travel writing is a crazy thing to do to yourself. There is almost no money in it, you spend an inordinate amount of time in bus and train stations, and in airports. It is murder on your personal life. Women are too smart to pursue such a foolhardy career!

No, but seriously … Women have been penning (and publishing) their journeys for centuries. Last summer, I had the glorious experience of visiting Larry McMurtry’s mansion in Archer City, Texas, which houses his personal library of 30,000 volumes—about 2,000 of which are travelogues by women, many published in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. On his shelves, I found leather-bound books like “On Sledge and Dogsled to Outcast Siberian Lepers” by Kate Marseden, and “Sunshine and Storm in the East: Or, Cruises to Cyprus and Constantinople” by Lady Anna Brassey. I couldn’t believe there were so many, and that I hadn’t heard of a single one. Apparently, women’s travelogues have been as marginalized as most of women’s literature.

I do think this is changing, however, thanks to modern-day pioneers like Dervla Murphy, Jan Morris, Marry Morris and Robyn Davidson, whose books have been commercially successful. Publishing houses are also stepping up to the plate and supporting more women travelers, such as Seal Press, Random House Vintage and of course Travelers’ Tales.

Read the rest here!