Just heard word that the lovely mujeres at Latina Book Club have posted a little Q&A we recently conducted about travel, books, and the writing life …
Interview with Diane LeBow
This week’s Best Women’s Travel Writing 2010 contributor has trekked across the Mongolian steppe, dived with Red Sea sharks, and explored Parisian cafes: Diane LeBow. She is president of the Bay Area Travel Writers.
Interview with Maliha Masood
This week’s Best Women’s Travel Writing 2010 contributor was born in Pakistan, is fluent in French, is married to an Italian, and considers herself a cultural chameleon: Maliha Masood. She is the author of Zaatar Days, Henna Nights, a travel memoir about her riveting escape from a dotcom Seattle cubicle to a solo expedition across Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Turkey for one tumultuous year.
Solas Awards
Friends, I hate to break it to you, but summer is rapidly vaporizing, all around us. How can we hold on, you ask? By capturing our summer adventures, of course! Travelers’ Tales has just announced its annual travel writing contest known as the Solas Awards. Here is the skinny …
Interview with Deborah Milstein
This week’s Best Women’s Travel Writing 2010 contributor lives within walking distance of six synagogues in Brookline, Massachusetts: Deborah Milstein. She holds …
Latina Book Club
Just heard word that my comadre in New York, Maria Ferrer, has started a new blog called Latina Book Club, dedicated to promoting the words of …
Interview with Jennifer De Leon
This week’s Best Women’s Travel Writing 2010 contributor has published fiction, poetry, and essays in Ms, Poets & Writers, Kweli, and Guernica, and has won fellowships from Bread Loaf and the Macondo Writers’ Workshop: Jennifer De Leon. Although she calls Boston home, Guatemala is her motherland.
Alaska Round-Up & Greece
Just returned from a two-week romp around my 48th state: ALASKA. What a glorious place! I saw two humpback whales and an orca breach in the bay, scaled one glacier and heard another “calving” (which sounds like a thunderstorm), watched a mama otter teach her pup how to crack a clam shell, biked along Anchorage’s Coastal Trail, ate a school of salmon and halibut, rode on a dog sled with a future Iditarod champ, and marveled over the scores of bald eagles, moose, seals, puffins, and hares roaming in the wild. Best yet, I did this with mi familia–Mom, Dad, my sister Barbara and her husband Alex, and my niece and nephew–our first family vacation in 20 years. Wow! The impetus for this journey was the Kachemak Bay Writer’s Conference in Homer, which was, hands down, the best writer’s conference I’ve ever attended: stellar staff, a wonderful faculty, a spectacular setting, and great camaraderie. Add it to your list, people!
Interview with Sara Bathum
This week’s Best Women’s Travel Writing 2010 contributor has lived with nuns in Ethiopia, skied down volcanoes in New Zealand, gotten her heart broken in Taipei, and nearly been abandoned at the border in Honduras: Sara Bathum. She currently lives in Seattle with her husband and newborn son.
Kachemak Bay Writers’ Conference
Apologies for the delayed updates as of late: in the past two weeks, I’ve hopped a MegaBus to catch my first roller-derby match in Chicago, IL; hung out with literary heroes at the National Latino Writers Conference in Albuquerque, NM; vacated my Iowa City, IA crashpad; and relocated to Corpus Christi, TX for the summer. Now I’m packing my bags for the Kachemak Bay Writers’ Conference in Homer (as in, Alaska), and here is why you should be too …
Interview with Elisabeth Eaves
This week’s Best Women’s Travel Writing 2010 contributor has written a memoir about stripping and a memoir about wanderlust: Elisabeth Eaves. Bare: The Naked Truth About Stripping was declared “a first-rate, first-person work of social anthropology” by the Washington Post, while Wanderlust is due out with Seal Press next spring. Born in Vancouver, she currently lives in New York City.
National Latino Writers Conference
Next week, I’ll be flying south and west to eat green chile, dance in the mountains, and teach a travel writing seminar at the Eighth Annual National Latino …