This workshop introduces participants to the art and craft of travel writing, well known to readers of newspaper travel sections. But what draws writers to this genre? Call it love of place, an important ingredient in fiction, poetry and essays, from William Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, to Bruce Chatwin’s Patagonia.
We will begin in the first session by considering the practical aspects of travel writing: suiting ideas to publications, story pitches, trip planning, journaling and note-taking, on-the-road observation, writing and rewriting. We’ll also spend time on the thorny subject of ethics: traveling anonymously and the do's and don'ts of trip financing.
To prepare for the second session participants will be asked to read three books that exemplify great travel writing: Robert Louis Stevenson’s heart-felt Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes; war correspondent Martha Gellhorn’s sharply-observed Travels with Myself and Another; and the Mary Taylor Simeti’s paean to Sicily, On Persephone’s Island. Our aim will be to notice critical factors like choice of material, authorial voice, narrative and underlying theme.
Participants will have the opportunity to submit samples of their own travel-inspired stories, fiction, memoirs or essays which the group will discuss in the workshop's third session.
Reading and writing by participants is not required, but strongly encouraged as a stimulus to discussion and an opportunity for feed-back.
ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR
Author, columnist, and traveler Susan Spano has journeyed the world reporting on culture, nature and items of human curiosity. She launched the still-running “Frugal Traveler” column for the New York Times, then joined the staff of The Los Angeles Times which sent her to the City of Light from 2003 to 2006 to start the popular travel section blog “Postcards from Paris.” She spent 6 months in Beijing studying Mandarin and researching stories in the run-up to the 2008 Olympics before moving to Rome---her favorite foreign posting---where she wrote on everything Italian, from Caravaggio to mozzarella. Her work has also appeared in the Financial Times, Chicago Tribune, Smithsonian, National Geographic Traveler and Redbook.
