Upcoming Travel Writing Seminar in Washington D.C.

Jason Clampet, editor of Frommers.com, is holding a 'Breaking into Travel Writing' Seminar on April 26, 2010.

Topics to be covered include...

- The fundamentals of compelling travel writing
- Useful insider tips for selling your articles
- How to identify markets
- How to earn money
- What makes a good travel memoir

For more information, head over to Mediabistro

TBEX '10 Calling for Entries for Community Keynote

TBEX'10, the travel bloggers event of the year, will take place in New York City on June 26 and June 27th.

I had hoped to go this year but life got in the way and instead I will instead be cruising on the high seas while TBEX'10 is on.

But thanks to the TBEX'10 Communtiy Keynote, there is a way that I and others unable to attend, can participate.

The community keynote offers independent travel bloggers a chance to have their work presented by Pam Mandel and Mike Barish at the TBEX ’10 Community Keynote session.

Interested?

Then check out Kim Mance's post, CALL FOR ENTRIES: TBEX '10 COMMUNITY KEYNOTE, over at Travel Exchange.

Here's the highlights...

You do not need to attend TBEX ’10 to submit work for inclusion in the Community Keynote (though we’d love to see you). Simply review the list below and submit one of your favorite blog posts that fits into a specific category. All work must be original, written by you, and published on your blog (whether old or new). There is no compensation for entries chosen (beyond TBEX fame and a link), and author retains their own copyright. One submission per person, only!

1. Twinkle in a Traveler’s Eye – The Ideas That Inspire the Trips

2. In Transit – The Perils (and Joys) of Transportation

3. Talking to Strangers – The People You Meet

4. Spit or Swallow – Culinary Conundrums

5. The Power of Places – Inspiring Destinations

6. You Did What? – Adrenaline Rushes and Adventures

7. Love at First Flight – Tales of Romance on the Road

8. Trips & Falls – Embarrassing Tales & Travel Fails

9. Home, Bittersweet Home – Reverse Culture Shock & Many Happy Returns

Tom Swick Writes about the evolving role of the travel writer

There's a great article, Not a Tourist, posted over at World Hum about the evolving role of the travel writer in modern times.

Written by Tom Swick, it is part autobiographical, part historical as it traces the history of the travel writer through the ages.

Definitely worth reading...

Heather Hapeta to Hold Travel Writing Course at Daku Resort, Fiji...

New Zealand travel writer Heather Hapeta aka 'the kiwitravelwriter' is running a 7 day travel writing course at the Daku Resort in Fiji in August.

Sounds like a great way to combine a beach holiday with your writing and travel passions. The course is geared to teach you the ins and outs of writing travel articles, blogs,etc.

Topics include (but not only):

· How to write for specific publications
· Know your market
· What works – what doesn’t?
· Where to sell your stories – locally and internationally
· Finding your own style, and the secrets of style
· Use your senses; quotes; fact files
· Query letters, and the taxman
· Considering other markets
· Photography and travel writing

. . . plus exercises, daily expeditions, and lots of talking in-between, and one-on-one time with your tutor as required.

By your last day you should have a perfectly formed (and critiqued) article ready to pitch to an editor and start earning.

Course requirements: enthusiasm and curiosity are essential.

Add notebooks and pencils; a camera; perhaps your laptop or an audio cassette – and, as we are on a Pacific island – sunscreen and swimming costumes are highly recommended!

$NZ500 discount for early-bird bookings – by end of April 2010 - for THIS travel workshop only. The price includes flights from New Zealand, accommodation (twin share) meals, and visits associated with the course, and naturally, an exciting week-long holiday retreat at Daku Resort.

For more information on click on travel writing course at Daku Resort.

52PerfectDays.com's 3rd Annual Travel Writing Contest...

52 Perfect Days has launched their 3rd Annual Travel Writing Contest.

This year's theme is National Parks.

Submissions should be 1000 words focusing on a National Park, National Monument, National Seashore or Historic Parks in the United State or Canada, highlighting how to spend a perfect day there.

Head over to 52 Perfect Days for full submission guidelines

Deadline is 31st October 2010

First Prize is a trip to Oahu, 2nd Prize 2 Nights in Palm Springs, 3rd Prize a Wordpress Website, and 4th Prize a Tom Bihn Travel Bag. And 10 runner up prizes of a a copy of Best Travel Writing "True Stories from Around the World".

Travel & Words 2010: A Pacific NW Travel Writers Conference...

If you are heading for the Pacific Northwest this summer, you might want to consider attending TRAVEL & WORDS 2010.

Where: Courtyard Marriott, 1515 Commerce Street, Historic downtown Tacoma Washington

When: June 26 8:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m

A one day workshop for freelance travel writers, journalists, photographers, editors, and travel and tourism industry professionals, TRAVEL & WORDS 2010 is designed to provide participants with...

...timely information on changes and trends in the freelance writing world, particularly the use of social media in managing and marketing one’s brand and developing income-producing web sites related to travel writing.

...encourage networking with editors and travel and tourism industry professionals who highlight Pacific NW destinations, including Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Alaska, and British Columbia.

...discuss the process of marketing freelance articles and photography to both print and online publications in the Pacific Northwest and beyond.

For more information, check out the Travel & Words 2010 Conference website.

Rolf Potts to Lead Travel Writing Workshop in Iceland...

Travel writer and author Rolf Potts, fresh from his Paris workshop in July, will be leading a 5 day Travel Writing Workshop in Iceland on August 1st, 2010.

At this travel writing workshop, the emphasis will be on participants creating travel stories, memoirs, and experimental essays that examine sense of place, cross-cultural inquiry, and personal discovery. Rolf will be offering direction and guidance, with the aim for each student to have one completed non-fiction article ready for publication by the end of the workshop.

The cost - $$1950.00 - includes:

5 days travel writing workshop with Rolf Potts
7 nights accommodation (based on double occupancy) at House of Spirits Guesthouse
7 breaksfasts, 7 lunches, 7 dinners

For more information, head over to Angela Richie's Ace Camp website.

For more on Rolf Potts, read this Write to Travel interview with a travel writer.

Weekly Top 5 Blog Posts for Writers...

It's been a while but Write to Travel is back with the weekly 'Weekly Top 5 Blog Posts for Writers".

1. What Magazine Editors Value From Freelance Writers

2. What Avatar Can Teach You About Repurposing Your Content

3. The Importance of a Writers Agreement

4. 10 Lessons I Learned from A Magnificent Failure

5. 10 Amazing Life Lessons You Can Learn From Albert Einstein

Study Travel Writing With World Hum

Anyone looking to learn more about Travel Writing in the Digital Age might want to consider enrolling in one of the World Hum two-day travel writing workshops on offer.

The workshops, taught by World Hum’s founders and editors, Michael Yessis and Jim Benning, will run on the following dates at the Travel Channel headquarters in Washington, D.C.:

April 10 - April 11
June 5 - June 6
Aug. 7 - Aug. 8
Oct. 16 - Oct. 17
Dec. 11 - Dec. 12

The workshops are aimed to provide participants with information on how to turn travel tales into compelling travel stories that magazine and website editors will want to print, on how to create and write dynamic travel blogs and audio slideshows, and how to utilize social media networks to establish firm travel writing credentials.

Click here for more information.

Guest Post: How Childhood Travel Can Influence Your Writing by Mindy Friddle.

Write To Travel is pleased to welcome author Mindy Friddle. Mindy, who is on a WOW blog tour to promote her new book Secret Keepers, offers an interesting guest post about childhood travel and writing.

But first a little about Mindy who lives, writes, works and gardens in South Carolina where she directs a community-based writing program. Her first novel, The Garden Angel (St. Martin’s Press/Picador) was selected for Barnes and Noble's Discover Great New Writers program in 2004. Secret Keepers, her second novel, was published by St. Martin's Press in May. For more information, visit Mindy's blog Novel Thoughts: Musings on Reading, Writing & the Earth.

Now for Mindy's thoughts on childhood travel and writing...

My family moved from our small hometown in South Carolina to an Army base in Germany in my formative years, and I have no doubt the extensive travel over four years helped shaped me as a writer. By the time I was fourteen, I’d been all over Europe. As a Girl Scout, I’d seen the East Berlin wall. At twelve, I’d taken a bus with a friend to Paris. I’d gone camping in Sweden. And I loved that military families were so comfortable with meeting new people. You welcomed change because every three years you moved...and so did everyone else.

For me, what's so powerful about travel, besides being the ultimate form of escape, is the way it changes your view of the world, even after you return home. Especially after you return home.When I was sixteen, we moved back to the States, back to the small town I was born in, where everyone knew each other since kindergarten, where there was no public transportation, where everything was so set. I loved so many things about it, but the place felt so different to me. I felt like a genie being squeezed back into the bottle.

Maybe that has something to do with why the protagonist in SECRET KEEPERS, my second novel, longs to leave her hometown and travel the globe. As I mention on my website, The Story Behind Secret Keepers, I started the novel with an image of Emma Hanley, gazing at a family portrait, stuck in her small hometown. Like George Bailey in the movie, It’s a Wonderful Life, she yearns to flee. Just when it looks like she might get her wish, her husband heads off to his morning coffee klatch with a gaggle of adoring widow women, and Emma’s dream of travel is stymied. Again.

I'm still here in my hometown, by the way, nearly three decades later. But I'm feeling the itch to travel again-- explore another continent. Only... it seems to get harder to leave as the years go by. Katherine Mansfield expressed this perfectly in a letter: “How hard it is to escape from places. However carefully one goes they hold you -- you leave little bits of yourself fluttering on the fences -- little rags and shreds of your very life.” Exactly.

Have a read of the first chapter of Secret Keepers. It will definitely make you want to read the whole book which can be purchased here.

How to Avoid Bad Travel Writing...

World Hum has an entertaining article by travel writer David Farley on 'How to Write a Bad Travel Story'.

Tongue in check, David explains how easy it is to write a bad travel story and offers a series of tips that will ensure that you do.

Read it carefully. You might just find that you are actually using some of those tips in your own writing. That's fine if you want to write bad.

But I'd rather be writing good, no, make that great, travel articles. So I'll be bookmarking David's article to ensure I avoid his tips.

2007 Writer's Symposium by the Sea: Anne Lamott...

A Conversation with writer Anne Lamott (Bird by Bird) at the Writer's Symposium By the Sea 2007



(found via Brett Oppegaard)

Travel Writing Miscellanea..

A Backpacker in India interviews travel writer and photographer Arun Bhat.

Frank Bures has an inteview with Rolf Potts published in the Nov/Dec issue of Poets & Writers.

Sandwagon asks Does travel writing style rule over travel writing substance?

Travel writer David Farley offers some tips on how to Travel (and get paid to do it)

Beth Whitman has a conversation with travel writer Dave Fox for seattlepi.com

New York Times has a slideshow looking at Why We Travel

Times Online lists The Best Travel Books of 2008

Weekly Top 5 Blog Posts for Writers...

1. Freelancer Pro Interview: Paul Spicer

2. 7 Tips for Making Email More Effective

3. How to Deal with Difficult Interviewees

4. The Lazy Man’s Guide to Getting Things Done

5. Writing Inspiration: How to Break Through Mental Barriers



plus two...

Copywriting Grammar Ain't Perfect

Entrepreneur Guy Kawasaki doesn't accept failure

Round-up of latest tips from '1001 Travel Writer Tips'

The tips just keep on coming over at 1001 Travel Writer Tips and each one is a gem.

Here's the last four...

Expensive destinations on a budget (or getting money by writing about value for money)

Turn trivia into a story (or how to make money from useless pub quiz knowledge)

Using trivia in round-up articles (or making money from themes).

Why editors love round-up articles (or playing the numbers game).

Travel Writing Miscellanea...

Vagabonding has an interview with Matt Goss, aka The New York Times Frugal Traveler.

Brave New Traveler interviews Christopher Rufo and Keith Ochwat, the Nomadic Geniuses Behind Roughing It: Mongolia.

Check out 2008 Rolf Potts Marco Polo Didn’t Go There book tour to see when Rolf might be in your neck of the woods.

For would be self publishers, Vagabondish has put together 7 Self-Publish Websites to Jumpstart Your Travel Publishing Career.

Wild About Travel + Writing provides Top tips for taking better travel photographs: Part 1 and Part 2.

Photoshelter looks at How to Shoot Great Travel Photography.

Rick Steves writes about The Art and Value of Journaling as You Travel.

Travel Writing Miscellanea...

Seattlepi.com has an interesting article/book review/interview More than just a travel writer, Kira Salak didn't search far for her novel's inspiration that makes me want to read Salak's first novel The White Mary. I've not read any of Salak's writing yet but she's on my list now.

Have Camera Will Travel has an interesting post about Selling Your Travel Photography that's worth a read.

NWA WorldVacations Launches Online Travel Story Contest

Travels with the 'Next Great Travel Writer' contest winner...

Remember National Geographic Traveler and Travcoa's Next Great Travel Writer contest last year.

Well, the winner Suzanne Roberts is currently on the road in Mongolia with National Geographic Traveler Editor in Chief Keith Bellows (and a tour group). Suzanne's assignment is to write an article about the experience that will be run on the National Geographic Traveler website. Keith is along to offer support and coaching.

And thanks to the Intelligent Travel blog, we can follow their travels...

The Next Great Travel Writer: Arriving in Beijing

Next Great Travel Writer: Day Two in Beijing

Next Great Travel Writer: The Real Mongolia

The Next Great Travel Writer: Dating in Mongolia

with more to come...

Travel Writing Miscellanea...

Fellow blogger and travel writer Leif Pettersen was interviewed StarTribune.com for an article about Twitter. Called Keep it Short and Tweet, the article quotes Leif on his initial reaction to Twitter...

"I didn't get it," said Pettersen, 38, of his first reaction to the ultra-short posts. "It was like hearing bits of conversation from a room full of schizophrenics."

But looks like he's got it now. You can follow Leif's twitter over at his Killing Batteries blog.

....

Jerry Guo over at Gadling.com has been Talking travel with the notorious Thomas Kohnstamm.

....

The Sunday Herald has a review of Semi Invisible Man: The Life Of Norman Lewis, a neglected British travel writer who apparently "...spent his life foraging around some of the world's most dangerous places, from civil-war Spain to remote corners of Asia and drug-ravaged Latin America." Can't say I've ever heard of him, but he's now on my reading list.

....

SF Gate reviews "Presidential Travel. The Journey From George Washington to George W. Bush". Another book that sounds intriguing.

Travel Writing Miscellanea...

Sandwagon has an Interview with Robin Barton - author of 101 Weekends in Europe

Latest Perceptive Travel Zine Offers Good Reading.

Sex, sunshine and sangria? You must be joking! or more on the Thomas Kohnstamm saga.

World Hum writes about Travel Writing and Tall Tales: An Historical Perspective

Pam at Nerd's Eye View is giving away three copies of Mark McCrum’s Going Dutch in Beijing: How to Behave Properly When Far Away from Home. All you have to do is post about your favorite story about a cultural misunderstanding and leave a link in the comments.

The Matador Network, the interactive travel magazine, is launching 8 new websites. Here's a complete list of their sites:

Matador Travel
Matador Trips
Matador Study
Matador Nights
The Traveler's Notebook
Brave New World
Matador Goods
Matador Pulse
Matador Volunteer.