James Michael Dorsey is an award-winning author, explorer, and lecturer who has spent three decades researching remote tribal cultures in fifty-six countries. His separate passion is working as a cetacean naturalist on whale boats in California and Mexico, a parallel career he has pursued for three decades. These combined journeys have resulted in over 800 published essays and articles and four books. He is a former contributing editor at Transitions Abroad and has written for United Airlines, The Christian Science Monitor, Lonely Planet, Perceptive Travel, California Literary Review, Colliers, Los Angeles Times, BBC Wildlife, BBC Travel, Geo Ex, Wanderlust, and Natural History, plus several African magazines. His fourth and latest book, The Lagoon: Encounters with the Whales of San Ignacio is a memoir of his years spent in San Ignacio Lagoon in Baja.
How did you get start travel writing?
Inspired by nomadic friends in 1977, my wife and I left our jobs and wandered for three months across Europe with no itinerary. Freddie Laker had just launched “Sky Train,” so we flew to and from London for $99 each way. We rented a tiny Renault and lived in a two-person tent, buying each day’s food from street markets and cooking on a one burner propane stove. We drove through ten countries, saw a pope and Mother Theresa at the Vatican, and I busked with my guitar in the Paris subway. In Lucerne, our tent was overrun by mad ducks, and one night while asleep in the Amsterdam Stadium a persistent gopher kept us awake by insisting on coming up through our tent floor. We used Arthur Frommer’s book, Europe on Five Dollars a Day, and stayed within our budget. It was total freedom. After that it was just a matter of where to go next.
What do you consider your first “break” as a writer?
I was a successful painter and illustrator and had numerous shows at various Los Angeles galleries. My final show was at the L.A. County Museum of Art, and I thought I was headed to the big time. While waiting for the art world to beat a path to my door I indulged a long-held desire to try to write. I just wanted to have one piece published somewhere. After a year of collecting rejection slips from countless literary magazines, I was out of the art world loop but sold my first story to the now defunct, California Wild Magazine. Ironically, when my stories began to sell, I often wrote for magazines that I had previously illustrated. To date, I have published over 800 essays and articles in various international publications. I self-published my first book, Teas, Fear and Adventure, and an adventure travel magazine published my second book, Vanishing Tales from Ancient Trails. My third book, Baboons for Lunch, was published by Travelers Tales of Palo Alto, and my fourth book, The Lagoon, was published by Diversion Books of New York. I also have a monthly presentation gig at the Monterey Library in California called, “Before They Vanish.” That is the theme through all of my books, and hopefully the title of my next one.
As a traveler and fact/story gatherer, what is your biggest challenge on the road?
My biggest challenge on the road is the food. I am quite different than most travel writers in that I prefer to travel to places most people would not go — remote places, the further off the beaten path, the better. In those places, there is no air evac and certainly no medical facilities, so I cannot take a chance on eating something that will make me ill. Experience has shown me that you can always get goat and rice and spaghetti, no matter how far out there you are, plus I always carry a large bag of trail mix and several energy bars. I have eaten lots of bugs and snakes but draw the line at eyeballs and brains. Having said that, much of my travels have taken place in very hot and humid climates, and taking notes while in the field is a problem from sweating hands. Many notes have been lost from dripping sweat while writing. That’s why I take lots of photos to jog my memory when I am home.
What is your biggest challenge in the research and writing process?
Biggest challenge in researching and writing is securing local people who can grant me access to a remote village. I cannot just walk into a remote tribal area unannounced. I put in countless hours on the internet and correspond with other explorers who have been in the areas I am interested in long before I actually go to a place. Being a fellow of the Explorer’s Club and member of the Adventurer’s Club has gifted me with a world-wide network of information. My main interest has always been to visit a society before it vanishes forever, mostly those with no written language. Sometimes there simply is little or no information on the internet because of the location of such people. Then there is the challenge of presenting them to the world with dignity in a manner they deserve, giving them a small voice through my writing to say to the world, “Hey, we exist,” before they vanish forever. The great anthropologist and writer, Wade Davis has stated that the final speaker of a language dies every week taking and entire culture with him or her. That, to quote an old African saying is “like a library burning.” I am constantly learning on the job as I try to save these “libraries.”
What is your biggest challenge from a business standpoint?
From a business standpoint, finding an appropriate forum to publish my work is first. I realize that what I do has a very limited niche audience and I have been fortunate to have found a place in that milieu, but adventure travel magazines come and go in the blink of an eye. I have had feature stories in numerous publications that no longer exist. I am constantly searching for a new market, and fortunately they still seem to pop up. My trips have been so far out there that many editors have questioned their authenticity, so I always take lots of photos for verification.
Have you ever done other work to make ends meet?
I have no formal training as a writer. I barely got through high school English, and to this day I cannot conjugate a sentence. I did not set out to become a writer, and am a total autodidact. I carried the U.S. Mail for 31 years in order to get a pension and insurance, but I was 40 years old before I realized what I wanted to do with my life. That job allowed me to hit the ground running when I retired early at age 55. I enjoyed the work, being outdoors, and was fortunate to have a clientele of friendly movie stars on my route, but I always did it with an eye to traveling and writing about it. The Post Office was my means to an end. That was 20 years ago and since then I have collected and published stories from 56 countries.
What travel authors or books might you recommend and/or have influenced you?
My influences begin with Mark Twain, whose voice I can hear when I read his work. The man was a word artist. Next, and not in any particular order, would be Beryl Markham, Bruce Chatwin, Wilfred Thesiger, John Steinbeck, and Richard Burton. From a more current list, I would lead with Lawrence Millman, Tim Cahill, Paul Bowles, and Barry Lopez. I have been fortunate to have been befriended by Millman and Cahill. I learned to write by reading their work and going over it paragraph by paragraph, then sentence by sentence, and figuring out what made it work and why I liked it. On a side note, I knew Henry Miller quite well, but he was not an influence on me, simply a friend. He would roll over in his grave if he knew what I have become.
What advice and/or warnings would you give to someone who is considering going into travel writing?
My advice to anyone starting out is be sure it is what you want to do with your life, and if so, let nothing stand in your way. Write every day, be ready for lots of rejections, and remember that a rejection is only one person’s opinion. Read authors whose work you admire, and figure out what makes it work. Unlike me, writing classes or workshops should be a must; they are great places to network and exchange ideas. Always check the website for submission guidelines and follow them to the letter when submitting. Many are very strict about word count, etc. Finally, it never hurts to have a job on the side.
What is the biggest reward of life as a travel writer?
My biggest reward has been to see the world and feel good that my work actually paid for me to keep seeing it. Travel is the greatest education and I have been blessed to meet and know countless fascinating people I never would have known had I not become a travel writer. Since I prefer to travel so far off the beaten path, it has also allowed me to give a small voice to those with no written language and I take great pride in that.
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