Category Archives: Updates

Any essayist within 500 miles of the Hawkeye State should drive on over to Iowa City for the biennial NonfictioNow Conference, which kicks off Thursday, November 4 at …

Exciting news on the guidebook front. My travel writer friend Ayun Halliday has just published a sweet new ditty: The Zinester’s Guide to New York City, which folks …

I am excited to announce that the Dallas Morning News just published my profile of a South Texas hero: Lionel Lopez. Here is an excerpt:

CORPUS …

New Book Alert: Richard Goodman, writer extraordinaire, has just released A New York Memoir: fourteen essays about thirty years spent in the world’s most glorious city. …

I am pleased to announce that the lovely and talented Lavinia Spalding has just been named editor of Best Women’s Travel Writing 2011. What follows is the official call for submissions. Ladies: send her your work!

Calling All Women Travel Writers!

Is there a story held captive in you that’s begging to be set free? Here’s your chance to liberate it. Send your best true tale of the road to be considered for Travelers’ Tales’ The Best Women’s Travel Writing 2011. We’re looking for the full range of experience: adventurous, mystical, funny, poignant, cuisine-related, cross-cultural, transformational, funny, illuminating, frightening, or grim—as well as solo travel and travel with friends, partners, and families. Stories should reflect that unique alchemy that occurs when you enter unfamiliar territory and begin to see the world differently as a result. Previously published essays are OK, provided you control all rights to the story. Multiple submissions are also OK.

The deadline is September 21st.

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 …

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.

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 …

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 …

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!

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 …

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 …