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

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The Last of the Nomads by W.J. Peasley

W.J. Peasley's The Last of the Nomads is one of the most powerfully moving books I have ever read. It tells the true story of the 1979 rescue of an elderly couple, Warri and Yatungka, the last of the Mandildjara people, marooned in the vastness of Australia's Gibson Desert, starving and slowly dying of thirst. 

This goes on my top 10 books read list for 2014, and the list of recommended travel memoirs.

A bio of the author, W.J. Peasley
About the documentary of 1997 (includes clips)

==> COMMENTS always welcome. And you are most welcome to sign up for my newsletter.

SURF ON:
>Top 10 Books Read 2013
> Kenneth White's Across the Territories: Travels from Orkney to Rangiroa
> Guest-blogger Travel Writer L. Peat O'Neil with 5 Links on Walking and Literature
> Demon of the Waters: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Whale-Ship Globe by Gregory Gibson

And over on the home page, www.cmmayo.com
>>>> More about my one day only Literary Travel Writing Workshop at the Writer's Center, Saturday October 11, 2014, in Bethesda, MD.
>>>> Book Review for Tin House: Fanny Calderon de la Barca's Life in Mexico

Podcasting for Writers at the Writer's Center, Bethesda MD

I've had such fun learning to podcast, I am really looking forward to giving the new 2 hour workshop PODCASTING FOR WRITERS at the Writer's Center on May 5th. (More information about my other workshops, including HOW (AND HOW NOT) TO WRITE DIALOGUE here). I'll be talking about the technical stuff, of course, but also choosing from the among the astonishingly wide range of possible formats. Just for example, I've made podcasts out of

a panel discussion at a writer's conference

a book presentation

reading of an excerpt from a book

reading of a guest-blog post

some tips for my workshop students

an interview with another writer
an interview with a wilderness expert as part of an ongoing travel memoir

And there are many more formats to consider... it's a cornucopia.

So we'll start off with your intentions; an overview of the flourishing menu of options; looking at your time and money (and anxiety) budget; and with that in mind, figuring out what works best for you.

The goal is that you will be able to go home and make your own plain vanilla podcast.

>>MORE INFO AND REGISTER HERE.

UPDATE: PODCASTING FOR WRITERS & OTHER CREATIVE ENTREPRENEURS is available from Dancing Chiva as an ebook December 2012
>>Click here to visit the website

Maximilian ~ Carlota Blog, New Posts on Tuesdays

A biography, a memoir, and a musical: check out the Tuesday update over at Maximilian ~ Carlota, a blog for researchers (both serious and armchair) about the tumultuous period of Mexican history known as the Second Empire or "French Intervention."

Hattie Ellis's Sweetness and Light: The Mysterious History of the Honeybee

New on my list of recommended literary travel memoirs is British journalist Hattie Ellis's elegantly written and deeply researched Sweetness and Light: The Mysterious History of the Honeybee. Travel on a spoon from Surrey to Sicily, and Paris parks to New York City rooftops--- and gain an all new appreciation of this nectar from heaven, and the reason why bees can tell us more about ourselves than any other creature. (Except, well, pugs. Had to get that in there.) More anon.