Tell us the story behind the title of your book.

The title is a play on words. Dizzy has a dual meaning. It refers to Dizzy Gillespie, who performed in Karachi back in 1956. The concert was a huge success and nurtured an entire generation of Pakistanis who were influenced by American pop culture, my father among them. He was a major jazz buff while growing up in Pakistan. Then one day, out of the blue, my dad talked about seeing Dizzy’s concert. He talked about the mad rush for tickets, the impromptu jam session and Dizzy’s signature trumpet with the bent bell.  So the reference to Dizzy is both the musician as well as the disorientation of going back home and finding it utterly beyond recognition. I was born in Karachi and spent my childhood there. I went back for the first time after twenty one years with the idea of rediscovering my homeland. What I found was a strange mix of the familiar and the foreign. The changes were enormous. And along with all those changes were so many contradictions. Pakistan is full of extremes. It can make your head spin.

What specifically compelled you to write the book?

I couldn’t get over the fact that my father had seen Dizzy Gillespie in a country that we associate with the Taliban. Something had to have gone horribly wrong between then and now. I wanted to find out how Pakistan evolved from this period of cultural sophistication during the 1950s to a spawning ground for terrorism and violence in our current day and age. So I started doing some research at my local public library and I learned that Dizzy’s concert was sponsored by the State Department during Eisenhower’s administration to foster cultural diplomacy. They used the power of music as a foreign policy tool and Pakistan was on the touring list for American jazz artists. Not just Dizzy Gillespie. But also Dave Brubeck and The Duke Ellington Band. I found all this very intriguing. It made me realize that there’s so much more to Pakistan than what we hear about on the evening news. You can’t understand the entire country based on the latest horror story in the papers. I wanted to provide another perspective, one that emphasizes the positive over the negative. Not to erase the negative imagery, but to add another element to the puzzle, one that we don’t often hear about or even know exists. So I decided to merge some history and culture with my travel adventures and put it all into writing. I knew there was a story to tell and it was too good to keep entirely to myself. That’s why I write. Not out of love, but out of necessity. It took seven years to figure out what form and shape this story would take. I struggled with the writing and kept hacking away until it all came together.

Tell us about your road to publication.

Once I had the manuscript in one piece, I started sending it out to agents and publishers. I got one rejection after another. I don’t think it was just a critique of my writing, which is hardly high brow literature. I think people were leery of reading something positive about Pakistan. They wanted something they were familiar with like the horror stories. I was pushing boundaries and that can be uncomfortable. I nearly gave up on this project and then I went to a local book fair and came across a small press based out of Seattle where I live. They got it right away. There are not many travel books on Pakistan. In fact, we don’t even use the words travel and Pakistan in the same sentence. I’m trying to change that perception. Dizzy in Karachi is part travelogue, part memoir and part country analysis. It’s a much broader perspective so you get to see many different angles on Pakistan. And it’s not just about the country. The bigger themes are much more universal, like cultural identity and belonging and the meaning of home. 

Would you travel to Pakistan today?

Yes and no. I say yes because the country is at a very interesting place and there’s so much going on that’s new and exciting. Elections are coming up and Pakistan has passed a historical milestone in maintaining a civilian government for five years without military intervention. There’s also so much happening from a cultural standpoint. There’s a very strong independent media within Pakistan and they’re quite outspoken and critical of the status quo. I still find it amazing that a conservative Muslim country like Pakistan can air a talk show with a transvestite host! And there is a major fashion scene in the cities with catwalks and stunning models who happen to be Muslim women. I like all this edgy stuff. It blurs the lines between tradition and modernity. But still there are so many challenges to overcome. It’s a lot more dangerous now than when I visited ten years ago, which is why I wouldn’t want to go back today. I was very lucky in that I took so many chances and came away unscathed from the Khyber Pass and the North West Frontier province which is considered the heartland of religious extremism and militancy. I’m not sure I would be so lucky if I were to go back today. And I wouldn’t want to tarnish the memories from that first eye opening trip. The places I went to and the people I met made such a huge impression on me. I was taken in by utter strangers and made to feel home. It was incredible. I don’t think I could have that kind of luck twice. I saw so much of the country that you never hear about and it was the adventure of a lifetime. You can’t repeat that. It only happens once.

What was it like traveling alone as a woman there?

I didn’t really find it too difficult since I had done quite a bit of traveling in the Middle East. My first book, Zaatar Days, Henna Nights is about my adventures backpacking Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Turkey. Mostly solo. I did this almost as a dare, something I had to prove to myself. I knew it would be difficult and that’s why I did it. Pakistan was different. You were considered insane if you insisted on traveling alone as a woman. People thought I didn’t know any better even though I was well aware of the risks. But just like going to the Mideast, I was determined to travel somewhere difficult. I thought Pakistan would be more comfortable turf because it was home, but strangely enough it was not. Pakistan doesn’t have the infrastructure that’s friendly to independent travel. There are no subways in the cities. No decent public transportation. You can try the public buses but there’s no such thing as timetables and schedules. It’s hard to travel alone in Pakistan for anyone, regardless of gender. You need friends and contacts to open doors. I didn’t have much in the way of contacts, but I met people through my job and one thing led to another. When people learned I was not just Pakistani but also American, they were a lot more open and friendly. I got the VIP treatment. They admire you in a sense for taking to the road and being adventurous. But they also consider you a bit of a loony. I got used to it. I knew I wasn’t breaking the law by traveling solo. Just breaking stereotypes. And I’m all about that.

What surprised you about Pakistan?

How urban it is. We tend to perceive Pakistan as this desert backwater land with mountains and jungles, but so much of the country is big cities, crowds, pollution, traffic jams. It’s also very commercialized. There are so many shops and things to buy from textiles to shoes and amazing handicrafts at bargain basement prices. In the bigger cities, you’ll find a strip mall at just about every traffic roundabout. And food. You can always find something to eat at all hours of day or night. The choices are endless from fancy air conditioned restaurants to street vendors and even burger joints. I loved shopping in Pakistan. The selection and prices are some of the best I’ve seen anywhere in the world.

Any frustrations?

The complacency. Pakistanis love to complain but they don’t want to lift their finger and do something about the problem!  It’s part of the national psyche, this whiny culture. And it drives me nuts. It’s probably because I’ve become too Americanized. I’ve gotten used to rolling up my sleeves and dealing with issues head on. But in Pakistan, this kind of attitude is not the norm. They would just laugh and say nothing ever changes and there’s no need to make a fuss and you just have to live with it. So there’s a kind of fatalistic mentality and I find it difficult to accept. Karaachites are somewhat better. Their complaints have a hint of hopefulness. And they have taken some action. Like with the Orangi Project, one of the world’s biggest development programs to revitalize urban slums. They got running water, computer, basic health care and they did it all without the help of the government. But then there are things you simply cannot fight, like power cuts. It happens routinely and I still remember growing up in Karachi and doing homework by candlelight because of bijli failure. This is still a major problem. It’s not just terrorism and violence. It’s practical stuff like losing electricity in peak summer for up to 18 hours a day.

What was your favorite place?

The Northern Areas. Hunza. The remote mountainous region of Pakistan often referred to as the rooftop of the world. I traveled there by Winnebago on a fabulous road, the Karakoram Highway, which is considered the eighth wonder of the world. It’s an amazing road, literally carved out of the mountains and connecting Pakistan to China. I went there in the company of real life princes and princesses. It was like something out a movie. And the characters I met were very charismatic. One in particular was my guide, Adam. He was my sole companion on a two week trekking trip in a remote wilderness. So much could have gone wrong. I had some mishaps, but I also had the time of my life. You can read about both in the book!

What did this trip teach you?

It’s a cliché but it’s really true: Home is where the heart is. I had traveled all this way to Pakistan hoping to find a sense of home but it wasn’t there. I had it all along in Seattle where I spent my formative years. It has shaped me and made me the person I am today. I learned that home doesn’t have to be a single entity. It can be many different places. And I felt most at home where I was a stranger among strangers. I guess that’s the immigrant’s perspective. To belong everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

What are your predictions for the future of Pakistan?

The country has so much potential. And so many setbacks. I think it’s a very delicate balancing act. There will be a national election on May 11 when the civilian government will hand over power to another democratically elected party. But having elections is not enough. Pakistan needs solutions to its rising unemployment. No one wants to invest in a country with a major security threat. On the foreign policy front, the US keeps criticizing Pakistan for not doing enough to curb violence especially along the porous Afghan border. Pakistan already has its resources stretched, and I think this will be an ongoing dilemma. The military needs to be less involved, but it’s also a stabilizing force. As for religion, Pakistan has never been able to reconcile the tension points between Islam and the West, but it was never meant to be this puritanical. The founding principle was that of a secular nation with religion as a private concern. Pakistan would be a lot better off by realigning itself to this original vision and I’m not very optimistic that would ever happen. But I do think Pakistan needs to be less reactionary and more inclusive when it comes to building ties with the West. We have to start a new dialogue, one that emphasizes the positive over the negative. I would like to think that Dizzy in Karachi is one those contributions. There needs to be more. A lot more.

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So 2013! It started with an investigative reporting trip to South Texas (subject of my next book about living in the borderlands) and then I returned to upstate New York to teach travel writing and an introductory creative nonfiction class at St. Lawrence University. I’ve also been hosting the Viebranz Salon Series, which entails throwing glitzy catered parties featuring local writers and musicians every couple of months at the Kohlberg House, and partaking in our Writer’s Series. In February, I had the honor of introducing one of my literary heroes, Rebecca Solnit (whose Field Guide to Getting Lost is an endless source of inspiration). In March, I had the great fortune of hearing Pam Houston of Cowboys Are My Weakness fame. (Book alert: her latest, Contents May Have Shifted, is just as brilliant.)

On April 4, I’ll be flying back home to Texas to join Manuel Luis Martinez, John Phillip Santos, and Carmen Tafolla on a panel called “Global Odyssey: From Texas to the World and Back” at the Wittliff Collections at Texas State University-San Marcos, and will stick around through the weekend, both to be inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters and to replenish my body and soul with badly needed sunshine, chips, and salsa. Then I’ll return to New York to give my farewell reading at St. Lawrence on April 25th. In May, I’ll be speaking at Hartwick College in Oneonta, New York, and at some point in June, I’ll be moving 800 miles south to become Assistant Professor of Creative Nonfiction at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. If anyone knows of any housing leads thereabouts, please let me know! For the first time in two decades, I’ll be planting some roots.

Here’s hoping our paths cross along the way. Gracias, and enjoy the spring!

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Another sign that spring will someday surface: a weeklong break from university life! My family flew out to join me for a road trip to Quebec. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere on this blog, I’ve been working on a book about life in the Texas/Mexico borderlands for four years now, and since moving up here, have decided to add the New York/Canada borderland to the mix. So I’ve grown quite fascinated with our Northern neighbor in recent months, particularly how it has managed to maintain two distinct cultures, Anglophone and Francophone, despite centuries of battles, separatist movements, and “quiet” revolutions. You can literally see the borderline when you drive from English Ontario into French Quebec: the signs switch from English to Francais, the scarlet maple leaves transform into blue fleur de lis, and the donut shops give way to bakeries selling fresh pain au chocolat.

Quebec City is perched high above the northern end of the same river that runs near my little town: the St. Lawrence. While March is probably the least pleasant time of year to visit it, as the snow banks have turned the color of soot and the sky is soggy gray, we were enveloped in warmth as soon as we stepped into our bed-and-breakfast, the Chateau des Tourelles, which was all hard-wood floors, apricot walls, and friendly men with sexy accents. They directed us to a bistro called The Hobbit on St. Jean Rue, where the waiter suggested we start off with a cheese plate and some wine, then gradually move on to dinner “and then a dessert and of course a coffee and some relaxing.” My kind of place. I convinced my niece and nephew to try duck confit, which instantly turned them into French foodies. “It’s like eating butter!” my niece exclaimed as the meat slipped clean off the bone with a single tug of her fork.

From there, we wandered through Vieux Quebec, a labyrinth of cobblestone streets and copper-domed castles surrounded by high fortress walls. There, we found bookstores featuring thousands of dignified, white covers with unadorned typefaces; boutique grocery stores that sold herbs and teas in tiny cloth bags tied with bows; music stores that stocked only records; an outdoor ice-skating rink that blasted jazz from its speakers. The stained-glass windows of churches cast kaleidoscopic light on the snow. Horse-drawn carriages clopped down the alleyways. Shattered ice floated along the river.

Just as we were absorbing the 400-year-old feel of the place, we noticed a construction crew icing down some sort of track that turned out to be the obstacle course for the upcoming Red Bull Crashed Ice Competition, in which 80,000 screaming fans gather to watch hockey players hurtle down a terrifyingly steep track full of chicanes, jumps, and rollers at speeds of up to 43 miles per hour, all while pummeling one another derby-style. Things like this make me realize how utterly different it is to grow up in “beach culture,” where the rowdiest group activity is stuffing sand down someone’s suit. Winter people scare me.

The rains came early the next morning and never ceased the whole day through, which sent us running to the museums, starting with the Musee National des Beaux-Arts du Quebec, which visually depicted the region’s rocky transition from a (literally) walled kingdom into an open, modern society. (As one sign put it: “A surrender to novelty without question or opposition would have been the mark of a soulless and spineless society. A categorical rejection of all innovation in the arts would have indicated one incapable of regenerating itself.”) I found Jean-Paul Riopelle’s tribute to Rosa Luxemborg particularly impressive…

….as well as his admission to artistic obsessive compulsion: “The important thing is to produce. For instance, if someone asked me why I sketched 2,000 owls, I would answer that it was to produce 10 lithographs. But what really interests me is to have produced the 2,000 owls.”

Our next stop was the Musee de la Civilisation, which showed how the French lived as a conquered, second-class citizenry for centuries, with the English controlling all of Canada’s power and wealth even in regions populated almost entirely by the French. Finally seeing their language as the last line of defense against Anglo-Saxon culture, the Quebecois began to fight for it valiantly (particularly when the Brits commissioned studies like the 1839 Durham Report, which declared them a people with “no history and no literature”). As someone who has deeply mourned the loss of her own ancestral culture, I sympathize with this plight, though it has certainly led to extreme measures over the years (such as when so-called “tongue troopers” fined merchants for hanging English-only “Merry Christmas” signs in their windows because they claimed it violated the 1977 charter making French the official language of Quebec). Although the lingual war has quelled in the past decade, the separatist Parti Québécois was recently voted back into power, so it will be interesting to see what other cultural preservation tactics they dream up. Just last month, their inspectors objected to the repeated use of the word “pasta” on a Montreal menu (which the media promptly deemed “PastaGate”) and to the words “on” and “off” on a microwave oven….

Considering these tensions, I was nervous how my linguistically-challenged family would be treated (particularly given the snooty treatment I experienced in Paris a few years back), but we found the Quebecois to be amazingly accommodating. Although people initially addressed us in French, they quickly switched to English with no sign of resentment whatsoever. Waiters patiently translated their menus item by item, which was a beautiful thing, as I can’t remember the last time I ate so well. Though the competition was stiff, the highlight was probably Le Billig Creperie-Bistro on St. Jean Rue, where buckwheat crepes started at $4.25 for a slather of butter, to $20 for one rolled in Swiss cheese, leeks, and lemon butter and topped with seared scallops. Other culinary miracles included the Bearn (duck confit, spinach, Swiss, and goat cheese with onion marmalade), the Lutec (cheddar, prosciutto, mushroom, mesclun, and tomato), and the Domen (Swiss and Roquefort, pecans, mesclun, pine nuts, tomatoes, and apples). And then there were the dessert crepes: the Salidou (salted butter caramel with Chantilly) and the aptly-named Extreme (poached pear with vanilla ice cream, dark chocolate sauce and almonds). Délicieux!

This all goes to say that I foresee more romps in the Anglophone/Francophone borderlands in my future, as I continue to contemplate the way borderlines shape our identities. At the very least, there is Quebec’s poignant motto to consider: Je me souviens, or I remember—the past and its lessons, the past and its misfortunes, the past and its glories.

Happy Spring, everyone.

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Counting from the moment I rolled out of my driveway in Canton, New York to the instant I pulled up to my hotel in Melbourne, it took 38 hours to get there. Rather than collapse into bed, I called my dear friend Sree, whom I met last year at the Overseas Writing Workshop in the Philippines, and she darted over bearing gifts, including chocolate TimTams and coconut Lamington Fingers, a bottle of tea tree oil, must-read books, a fresh mango, and most exciting of all: Vegemite, which she declared a rite of passage for any Oz-bound visitor. A dark brown yeast extract, it tasted salty and slightly sour, not as delicious as I’d imagined as a child, but fair enough when spread over liberally buttered toast and downed with hot tea.

Now that I was culinarily baptized, we hit the streets of Melbourne, which has all the city-traits I adore: walking trails along a river lined with footbridges and gelato stands; a bustling Chinatown with dumplings galore; tiny side streets dotted with sushi stands, Malay curry houses, soup stalls, coffeehouses, and bookstores; a massive plaza used for protests and picnics called Federation Square; a sprawling mercado of produce and souvenirs called Victoria Market; and best of all, public art everywhere you turn. We’re talking 12-foot murals, towering sculptures, Gaudi-style architecture, and some highly innovative street musicians (including a Taiwanese rapper wearing a Santa Claus cap who whacked a tambourine against his leg to keep the beat, and four men wearing loin cloths and body paint who played the didgeridoo). What delighted me most, however, was the Sandridge Bridge, which features an engraved glass pylon for every nationality that has ever called Australia home, plus stunning steel statues documenting each major wave of “The Travelers.” Indeed: Australia is a nation that celebrates traveling, that honors the sheer idea of movement. Their aboriginal people are the finest nomads the world has ever known, and every last one of their immigrants traveled an extraordinary distance to be there—as do their visitors today. Maybe this is why I saw images of airplanes wherever I looked: it is the symbol that binds us all.

Then began the conference. NonfictioNow gathered some 350 nonfiction writers from Hong Kong, the Philippines, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Australia under one wildly constructed roof to discuss the state of our letters. Cheryl Strayed of Wild fame opened the conversation with her Dear Sugar column “Write Like A Motherfucker,” which has that glorious line about writerly obsession: the absolute only thing that mattered was getting that extra beating heart out of my chest. Other literati included Australian novelist Helen Garner, Filipino journalist Jose Dalisay, and U.S. essayists David Shields and Margo Jefferson. I participated in four panels myself, on topics ranging from the role of diversity in the essay to ethics, international research, and writing as an immigrant versus as an expat versus as a local. Good times.

From there, I had only one week to spare, so a tough decision ensued: the rainforest, the Great Barrier Reef, or the Outback? My love of Robyn Davidson’s classic travelogue Tracks, which details her epic 1,700 mile trek across the Outback with four camels and a dog named Diggety in the late seventies, pushed me toward the latter, so I caught a flight to Alice Springs, a desert town in the dead, red center of the nation, and booked a three-day camping trip with an outfit called Emu Run Tours. At 5:30 a.m. the following morning, I piled into a caravan with six Taiwanese, three Americans, two Japanese, two Aussies, a Kiwi, a Swede, a Brit, and a German and set off into the sunrise.

A couple hundred kilometers later, our first stop was Uluru, a single slab of sandstone that rises more than 1,000 feet from the earth. Aborigines have been holding ceremonies there for 10,000 years, but only in 1985 did they regain ownership of their sacred site from the government. After visiting the remarkable Cultural Centre, which recreated the ancestral stories of the Anangu people such as Kuniya the woma python woman and Liru the poisonous snake man, we set about hiking Uluru’s perimeter. It was roughly 9.5 kilometers in length and about 102 degrees that day. Our guide told us to carry three liters of water apiece and refill at every opportunity. I quickly separated from the group and hiked in silence and in solitude, marveling at how the face of the rock changed at every angle. And its energy! Though I am not nearly as attuned to “vibration” as my more spiritually-centered friends, even I could feel its pulse. Never have I had such a profound experience with a geological formation before.

After two and a half hours of hiking in the dessicating heat, however, I started experiencing a very different sort of pulse. My own, in my temples. My last liter of water was nearly drained, and the trail’s end was nowhere in sight. Just when dizziness started setting in, however, I spotted this:

Yet another homage to travel! And a most welcome sign of civilization. Once everyone had reconvened in our caravan, we headed off to await sunset over Uluru, which we celebrated with a champagne toast. The next 48 hours entailed two more awe-inspiring hikes (at Kata-Tjuta and at King’s Canyon), two memorable swims (including one at the bottom of said canyon), two cookouts, two nights of sleeping in a swag (that is, a canvas body bag into which you roll out your sleeping bag, over the dirt and under the stars, with nary a tent flap in between), a seven-minute camel ride, and endless camaraderie and story-telling, especially when fueled by bottles of “Fucking Good Port” (that really was as advertised). Bliss bliss bliss.

From the Alice, I blasted off to Sydney to spend my final 36 hours with Sree. Our home base was The Lord Nelson Brewery, a pub with a few rooms up top, right by the Circular Quay. That first night we drank champagne overlooking the Harbor Bridge, then hit up The Argyle for $18 cocktails (eep!), dancing, and flirting. The next day we took a fantastic tour of the Opera House and then caught a bus to the beach-of-legend: Bondi.

Every bit as eye-popping as the landscape was the peoplescape, particularly the Lebanese gangsters dripping in tattoos and girlfriends wearing suede-and-fringed bikinis. That, and all the men in Speedos (known as “budgie smugglers” in Ozzie parlance). From Bondi, we did the spectacular cliff top walk to Coogee, marveling at all the beaches, bays, and rock pools as well as what might be the world’s most scenic cemetery, Waverley (where I have since been instructed to bury the hand of a friend who spent the best year of her life surfing in Sydney, should she die before me). Coconut gelato marked the end of our six kilometer hike, and we returned to the city proper for dinner and another round of dancing, this time at someone’s birthday party. After breakfast the following morning, we dashed back to the Quay for a final glimpse of the city’s landmarks, and then I boarded a silver bird.

What else can I share about the Land Down Under?

Did you see any kangaroos? Yes, but not exactly hopping about. Three were served on a plate, twice as burgers and once as steak. I spotted at least a dozen kangaroos mummified on the highway between Uluru and Kata-Tjuta, and one that seemed to have perished just moments before. I also saw three trapped in a cage at a truck stop near Uluru. And that, I’m afraid, was it—unless you count the kangaroo jerky I nearly bought for my brother-in-law in Sydney, until I decided my niece would never forgive me.

What about koalas with googly eyes? Nope. You have to travel further north or east or south or west than I did for that. Apparently they spend the bulk of their days either stoned on eucalyptus or asleep, and get seriously pissed when interrupted.

Surely you saw at least a snake? Why yes. Allow me to introduce Olive, the python:

And Snickers, the blue-tongued lizard, both of whom I met at the Reptile Centre in Alice Springs:

But I suppose you’re asking about wild ones, no? Well, once, in the far-off distance, en route to Uluru, I glimpsed a lizard that must have measured two and a half feet in length. Big enough to straddle and ride. A monitor, perhaps? But that was it for wildlife, unless you count all the blackflies that attacked me while hiking Uluru.

Any foodie adventures? I was psyched about Australia’s culinary possibilities—particularly “Mod-Oz” which incorporates local produce with European techniques and Asian flavor—but after spending $8.50 on yogurt topped with a few spoonfulls of granola and raisins at the airport in Sydney, I realized I needed to budget, and so invested in a jar of peanut butter and loaf of bread for the bulk of my caloric intake, and allotted only one restaurant visit per day. I tried some Mod-Oz restaurants in Melbourne and in Sydney, but found them rather lacking—especially given their pricetags ($50 to $80 for a main course and single glass of wine). Outback cuisine was far more reasonable: at Victoria Market in Melbourne, I sampled barbecued crocodile (a cross between scallops and chicken) and emu (an ostrich-like bird that Aussies like to turn into sausages) for $9. But the best meals I had in Australia (both in taste and in value) were all Asian, including shockingly good duck curry at Nong’s in Alice Springs and Beijing ya at Mr. Chow’s in Sydney.

What about the Aborigines? Learning about Aboriginal culture was a major goal of mine in Australia, but it’s an incredibly complicated issue—one I won’t even attempt to address in a travelogue like this. I’ll share instead two artworks that speak for themselves. First is the traditional dot painting I bought in the Alice from an artist sitting on a grassy knoll in the Todd ped-mall, surrounded by family. It depicts women hunting for witchetty grubs, honey ants, and bush plums, and men following the tracks of emus and dingoes. This style of dot painting has been practiced for millennia, but first earned international acclaim in the Papunya region in the late seventies. Paintings by prominent artists can rake in six figures, but you can find beautiful works in the three-figure range in Alice Springs, which is lined with galleries.

Second is this work by Gordon Bennett, which I saw at the Contemporary Art Museum in Sydney. It sums up the treatment of the Aborigines over the past 300 years in six devastating words and images:

One of the challenges of being a writer is the heartache you experience every time you find an extraordinarily compelling subject that life will never allow you the time to properly explore. That was how I felt leaving Australia: elated to have glimpsed this remarkable world, yet heartsick that I’ll probably never write more than this about it. So here I am, and here you are. Thank you for being here, and Happy 2013.

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Over the summer, I taught a travel writing seminar at Pine Manor’s Solstice Low-Residency MFA Program in Boston, and then packed up my life into 42 boxes and moved 1,000 miles north and east to Canton, New York to become the Viebranz Visiting Professor of Creative Writing at St. Lawrence University. This has proven to be a marvelous gig: in addition to teaching two classes a semester, my official duties include throwing literary salons and parties at the Kohlberg House (a beautiful restored Victorian built in the 1850s where the Viebranz writer lives each year). That fall, I moderated a nonfiction panel at the Comadres y Compadres Writers Conference in New York City and joined my Iowa gente for four panels at the 2012 NonfictioNow Conference in Melbourne, Australia (as well as an excursion to Sydney and the Outback).

And now it’s already 2013! I am teaching two classes at St. Lawrence University this spring: traveling writing and intro to creative nonfiction. In April, I’ll be flying home to Texas to join Manuel Luis Martinez, John Phillip Santos, and Carmen Tafolla on a panel called “Global Odyssey: From Texas to the World and Back” at the Wittliff Collections at Texas State University-San Marcos; click here for details. I’ll also be giving a farewell reading at St. Lawrence on the 25th. Then at the end of May, I’ll be moving 800 miles south to become Assistant Professor of Creative Nonfiction at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

Here’s hoping our paths cross somewhere along the way. Gracias!

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So what is it like living in a town of 6,000—nearly half of whom are undergrads? Well, I hadn’t been here a week when I opened my back door one morning to find an armload of tomatoes, cucumbers, and onions piled atop the mat. Whoever left it wrote no note; it would be a month before a colleague mentioned it was her husband. “We just wanted to welcome you to the neighborhood,” she said. Indeed. There is strangely more to do here than in a mid-sized place like Iowa City, because anytime anyone dreams up anything even remotely interesting, they invite everyone they know to participate. Last night, for instance, a friend hosted “bread and soup night,” and more than a dozen of us eagerly attended. On Wednesday, I’ll be throwing a literary salon complete with readings and a banjo performance, and have already received thirty RSVPs. When I informed my students we needed to schedule a make-up class, they willingly relinquished their Friday night to do so.

Hospitality isn’t the only charm of folks in the North Country. They are amazingly self-reliant, too. They own things like wood-burning stoves and generators, and are confident they will not accidentally asphyxiate themselves. They chop their own wood and can their own tomatoes. They turn maple syrup into maple-leaf-shaped candy. I recently attended a Halloween costume party here, and was amazed at how many people came as bee-keepers. “You know, you just wear what’s laying around the house,” one explained from inside his mesh netting. Maybe. But what about the man who dressed as a carrot and ran around the dance floor, distributing baby carrots? Or the lady who dressed up like a maple tree, and her partner who wore a T-shirt that said, “I’ll tap that”?

This is a place where land is revered. Two hundred Amish families live out here, and their homesteads are a ready source of fresh honey, bread, apple butter, flowers, and basket-weaving. I hear them sometimes, their horse-drawn carriages clip-clopping down the street. Our county also supports sixteen CSA farms with names like Eight O’Clock Ranch, Hawkshaw Farm, Sweet Core Farm, Birdsfoot Farm, and Gramma’s Grass Acres. When I first arrived in July, they stocked our farmer’s market with pyramids of sweet corn, quarts of peaches and blueberries, and zucchinis galore. (In a survival manual for in-coming faculty, I was warned to lock my car doors in the summertime, lest someone stuff a bag of zucchini in it.) Then came tomato season, and with it mountains of basil. Asparagus arrived with great fanfare, followed by pears and shiny blue plums. Then came apples and pumpkins. Beets and potatoes. Carrots. Winter squashes. Gourds.

So how has this back-to-the-land self-reliance impacted me? Certainly, I’m feeling more attuned to nature these days. At least once a week, I see a deer, porcupine, fox, coyote, skunk, or coon. Granted, they are usually slumped on the side of the road, their insides spilling out, but still! I share my home with thriving colonies of spiders and centipedes. Granted, I murder a few members every evening…. but hey: I’ve long known there is an outdoors woman inside of me; she’s just never had the chance to emerge. Here in the North Country, I can step out my front door and get lost in a forest in fifteen minutes flat. For a mega-city urbanite like me, that’s progress.

So this is where this dispatch finds me: Canton, New York, aka The North Country. Hurricane Sandy spared our village, most gratefully, though I earnestly prepared for her by piling wood by my fireplace (though I didn’t really know how to use it) and filling my bathtub with water (though I didn’t know quite what to do with it).

I have conquered a twenty-year phobia and acquired a motor vehicle (though I am still nervous to use it). I cook all of my own meals with produce grown less than an hour away. I read, I write, I teach. I pick apples from trees. I crunch red and gold leaves.

Happy autumn, everyone.

The post Living in the North Country appeared first on STEPHANiE ELiZONDO GRiEST.

Here is a taste of my own contribution to the anthology, “Road Sisters.”

We were hungry, we were tired, and we were lost. Daphne was in the driver’s seat; I was navigating (and failing). We had been driving for three hours by that point, searching for Chilchinbito – a village so tiny, it didn’t appear on our Arizona atlas. We had been told that the Cowboy family might host us for the night, but they had no phone to confirm this. And so, we were relying on faith, blind faith. Faith that the Cowboys would be home; faith they would share their homes with strangers. Otherwise, we would be sleeping on the back roads of Navajo Nation that night.

I had met Daphne a week ago, but didn’t know what to make of her. Born in Brazil, raised in Venezuela and England, educated in the States, and trained in international aide relief in Africa, she was possibly the worldliest person I’d ever encountered, yet she approached each new destination on our road trip with the ecstatic enthusiasm of a novice. Her tongue was pierced and she bore a tattoo, implying a certain rebelliousness, yet she dutifully documented our mileage, filed our receipts, and cleaned out our 1981 Honda Hatchback each day. She was spontaneous but methodical, free-spirited but meticulous, gregarious but intimate, equally prone to laughter and tears. Who was this Brazilian badass, and why was she so fascinated by my life back in Corpus Christi, Texas?

“You were a Tigerette in high school? Like with pom-poms?” she asked for the twentieth time, a smile on her lips.

Was she – to use the British phrase she’d taught me – taking the piss out of me? Or was she genuinely interested? I wasn’t accustomed to someone so sophisticated being so curious.

“Yes, pom-poms. Sequined cowboy hats, too. But like I said, we weren’t cheerleaders. We were dancers.”

She pounded the steering wheel, shrieking in laughter.

“So,” I said, trying to keep worry from seeping out my throat, “what if we don’t find the Cowboys?”

“Shit, dude, we’ll figure something out.”

The sky was bleeding gold across the horizon. Any minute now, the sun was going to slip behind that faraway butte, and then we’d be driving in darkness. What if we missed the turn? Earlier that day, we had passed truckloads of Navajos who had stopped and poked their heads out their windows to check on us. (Bertha – our Honda – was visibly struggling along the dirt roads.) They confirmed we were headed in the right direction. Chilchinbito: straight ahead. Yet we hadn’t passed more than the occasional goat in miles. And the temperature was dropping at an alarming rate. This desert valley would soon be blue cold.

But if Daphne was concerned, she didn’t show it. “Let’s put on some tunes. David Gray?”

I shuffled through her CD collection, neatly alphabetized between transparent sheets.

“Aha!” she said. “I see a hogan.”

Off in the distance, I could make out a yurt-shaped construction of logs and clay. As we drew closer, half a dozen mobile homes appeared as well, assembled around a basketball hoop missing both backboard and net. As Daphne pulled into the settlement, Bertha sputtered to a halt and started smoking. Chilchinbito or not, we were staying here for the night.

A Navajo woman stepped out of a doorway, curious about the commotion. Plump with middle age, she wore a t-shirt of a howling coyote over baggy jeans. No time to strategize: we hustled over to greet her. When her gaze caught mine, my mouth parched – but not Daphne’s. Beaming broadly, she launched into our story. How we were from The Odyssey, a team of eight correspondents driving four cars thousands of miles across the nation to document the history so often omitted from classroom textbooks: slave rebellions, migrant workers, Japanese internment camps, the American Indian Movement. How we uploaded these stories onto a non-profit website monitored by hundreds of thousands of K-12 students around the world. How we did all of this on a $15 daily budget, which is why we needed to find the Cowboys of Chilchinbito, so we’d have a place to stay the night.

“The Cowboys?” the woman asked. “They’re our cousins.”

“Danny told us we’d find you!” Daphne flung open her arms, as if to say ¡Familia!

Not exactly. Over lunch at the Grand Canyon earlier that day, it had occurred to us that we had no place to stay that night. Pulling out our atlas, Daphne noticed we would be driving through the Navajo reservation, and asked our waiter if any Navajo were on staff. When he pointed out a busboy, she bum rushed him. Five minutes later, she had all the passwords we needed: Chilchinbito, Cowboy, and Danny.

“So you need a place to stay?” the woman asked, eyebrows crinkling.

“Yes,” we said in unison.

“Then stay here,” she murmured, opening her door.

Daphne turned to me with a wink and a smile. When our boss broke the news of our $15 daily stipend at orientation last week, every single one of my teammates thought it impossible – except Daphne. She thought it a challenge. And she liked challenges. Just the night before, in Vegas, she had talked the manager of a youth hostel into letting us sleep in the supply closet for half the regular rate. Girlfriend was on a roll.

We followed the woman inside her mobile home, where an ancient woman sat in a corner behind a giant loom, wearing a necklace of turquoise stones larger than my fist. Pausing in her project – a saddlebag patterned in black and white diamonds – she squinted at us with oystery eyes. From a back room appeared a man holding a wooden flute. His mouth opened in surprise at the sight of us. We all blinked at one another for an extended awkward moment. Then Daphne spun her magic.

“Oh my god! This bag is beau-tiful! And that flute! Did you make it? Can we hear it?”

Suddenly we were sitting together in a circle, upon their linoleum floor. They treated us to a woodwind concert and a hoop dance; Daphne showed them how to samba. They shared legends that predated that entire desert valley; we regaled them with last night’s adventures in Vegas. They gave us dream catchers; we outfitted them in Odyssey T-shirts. Daphne and I didn’t roll out our sleeping bags until midnight. When the family turned out the lights, she reached out to stroke my arm. “I am so glad we are traveling together. You are such a cool friend,” she whispered.

After a few seconds passed with no response, she hissed, “You beat me to sleep! All right, g’night.”

But I wasn’t sleeping. I had tucked my head inside my bag so she couldn’t hear me weeping….

(Me and my comadre at a recent reunion in Oneonta, New York!)

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