Literary Travel Writing

This Saturday I'll be teaching a one day workshop on Literary Travel Writing at the Writer's Center in Bethesda MD. I know that many of you, dear readers, are nowhere near this venue, but perhaps you will share my enthusiasm for some of the memoirs we'll be discussing, apropos of their use of various techniques from fiction and poetry.

For specificity:

Joan Didion's "Some Dreamers of he Golden Dream" Slouching Towards Bethlehem

Jon Swain's River of Time: A Memoir of Vietnam and Cambodia



For imagery:

Naomi Shihab Nye, "Camel Like Only Camel" Never in a Hurry: Essays on People and Places

Rupert Isaacson, The Healing Land: The Bushmen and the Kalahari Desert



For dialogue:

Robert Byron's The Road to Oxiana

Ian Frazier's Great Plains



For conjecture:

Nancy Marie Brown's The Far Traveler: Voyages of a Viking Woman



For detail and listing:

M.F.K. Fisher's Long Ago in France



For use of detail, repetition, and listing-- and structure:

V.S. Naipaul's A Turn in the South


A longer list of recommended travel memoirs is here.
My own books and other publications are here.



About this workshop:

April 16, 2016 Bethesda MD
(Saturday, one day only)

The Writer's Center
10 am - 1 pm
Literary Travel Writing 
Take your travel writing to another level: the literary, which is to say, giving the reader the novelistic experience of actually traveling there with you. For both beginning and advanced writers, this workshop covers the techniques from fiction and poetry that you can apply to this specialized form of creative nonfiction for deliciously vivid effects.

>Register for this workshop on-line here.

>More detailed description of the workshop here. (Link goes to my article about literary travel writing for the Writer's Carousel)

>Questions about this workshop? Email me here.

The Pecan: A History of America's Native Nut by James McWilliams

Summer Travel Reading: 10 Faves

Marfa Mondays Podcasting Project

Exploring Marfa, Texas & Environs in 24 Podcasts

Your comments are always welcome.

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Cyberflanerie: Who's In Charge? Edition

www.slowfactory.com

Today one of my favorite blogs, my daily dose of bloggy wisdom, Seth Godin's, features "Doing More, Giving More, Who's in Charge?" (Who's in charge? Hey, Hamlet, that is question.)

More cyberflanerie:

Rare books and Iceland: Nancy Marie Brown's blog, God of Wednesday, has a scrumptiously crunchy post about the Fiske collection of Icelandia at Cornell. (I adored Brown's The Far-Traveler, about Gudrid the Far-Traveler of Iceland, and often quote from it in my literary travel writing workshops.) 

Totally heart SlowFactory's space scarves Carina Nebula and Dust Devil Lines in the Sand.

In the Globe and Mail: "When a Car Becomes a Cathedral."

On This is Colossal: Eleanor Lutz's deconstructed bird and insect wing patterns.

For the artist-in-charge: Gumroad Resource Center

(Check out my lil' gumroad shop here.) 

Eew, Frankensteiny: A worm's mind in a lego body

Soon your robot can put your seatbelt on for you: Kevin Kelly on The 3 Breakthroughs that Have Finally Unleashed AI on the World

Guerrilla mosaic artist in Chicago fills in potholes. (Potholes in Chicago can get so bad... when I lived in Hyde Park there was one year we started calling my section of University Avenue "Iwo Jima.") 

Human energy expert Rose Rosetree explains the deeply weird attraction to unwrapping stuff on YouTube.

SOL Literary Magazine is out from San Miguel de Allende and I am delighted to mention that it includes an excerpt from the opening chapter of my latest book, Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution: Francisco I. Madero and His Secret Book, Spiritist Manual. That's in the nonfiction section with some excellent company, including Joseph Dispenza, Gerard Helferich and Michael K. Schuessler. Thank you, Eva Hunter and Cazz Roberts and all who work to make this beautiful literary magazine possible. It is an honor indeed.

www.sheepdogmovie.com

A documentary film about border collies and sheepherding that I really want to see (splendid trailer!): "Away to Me" by Andrew C. Hadra.

Jenny Redbug's top 5 favorite books for this year (!!!)

My own top 10 list of books read 2014 will be posted shortly.

Your COMMENTS are always welcome.

Top 10 Books Read 2013

Top 10 Books Read 2012

Cyberflanerie: 

Writerly Whatnot and Miscellaneous Missives Edition

Cyberflanerie: 

Definitely Different Edition

Cyberflanerie: 

Others Did It So I Don't Have To Edition

For Readers & Explorers 

(updated webpage)

Cyberflanerie: Definitely Different Edition

The Octopus Mandala

Toy Mammals and Dinosaurs Burdened with Miniature Civilizations

How the Sun Sees You

George Lombardi's Mission to India (well worth the listen)

Ye Olde Roots of the Federal Marijuana Ban

The Art Car Museum

Big Foot or Another Guy in a Ghillie Suit? (The Ghillie Suit reminds me of a neighbor's dog…)

Nancy Marie Brown on the Ornament of the World

P.S. I hear from Clare Sullivan that there are still a few spaces left in what looks like a terrific poetry retreat in Oaxaca, Mexico. Check it out here.

+ + + + + +

SURF ON

Madam Mayo:
> The Novel is a Mandala
> Cyberflanerie: Fun in Mexico, Literary Edition
> Top 10 Books Read 2008 (#1 was Nancy Marie Brown's The Far Traveler: Voyages of a Viking Woman)

And on the home page, www.cmmayo.com
> Upcoming workshops: Literary Travel Writing one day workshop October 11th at the Writer's Center
> Marfa Mondays: Podcast interview with historian John Tutino: Looking at Mexico in New Ways
> Conversations with Other Writers: Podcast interview with novelist Solveig Eggerz

Cyberflanerie: Miscellaneous Neat Stuff Edition

Write Your Own Academic Sentence

Apparently the latest mind-blower is an Interactive Dynamic Shape Display.

Those British pod-like self-driving thingies. (Once again, hat tip to Marginal Revolution).

Who would have thought? A major Mexico collection in Hawaii.

Wordoid a creative naming service. (Which reminds me of Write Your Own Academic Sentence.)

Write Your Own Academic Sentence

Oh, Karma, you are just so fab.

And oh, such very bloggable bee loafers. (For socialite apiculturalists?)

Nancy Marie Brown on Icelandic Witchcraft.

Chip Kidd says Good is Dead. Well, OK.

Write Your Own Academic Sentence

More anon.

CRITICAL MASS: Introducing the NBCC's Best Recommended

"CRITICAL MASS: Introducing the NBCC's Best Recommended" lists five books of fiction, all--- all?! (excuse me while I have a minor irony-laced fit of semi-serious feminist apoplexy)--- by men. Really, guys, huh? Did ya think we were all baking cookies now? And the nonfiction list needs to include Nancy Marie Brown's The Far Traveler. But how much influence does the NBCC (National Book Critics Circle) have? I think I'm a member... I can't recall whether or not I sent my dues in... anyway, the NNYCSABG (Not New York Centered Self-Appointed Book Gurus) over at Shelfari and Good Reads may become far more influential, even among the literari. (Herewith a link to a thoughtoid-ish blog post on that topic.) Sorry to pop your balloon, guys. I do love Edwidge Danticat's writing, though. In fact, I included one of her short stories--- as translated by the sublime Pura Lopez Colome, in the first issue of Tameme. Speaking of which, I'm off to New York City for the AWP bookfair, where I'll be at the Tameme table. More anon.

The Far Traveler: Voyages of a Viking Woman

by Nancy Marie Brown is beyond extraordinary. It is beautifully written, exquisitely imagined, deeply, broadly, courageously, and meticulously researched and--- yes, and--- it goes into the deepest vein of what story means to us all. I'm only half way through, and I know already that The Far Traveler will top my list of top 10 books read in 2008.

(Click for top 10 books 2006 and 2007).