Pier Nirandara is an award-winning author, travel writer, film producer, and underwater photographer. A multi-TEDx speaker and former literary ambassador for the Bangkok Metropolitan/UNESCO, Pier has written for BBC, AFAR, Lonely Planet, Condé Nast Traveler, Off Assignment, Catapult, Oceanographic Magazine, Adventure.com, among others. Her words have won at the Lowell Thomas Awards from the Society of American Travel Writers, the Solas Awards for Best Travel Writing of the Year, and at the Book Passage Travel Writers & Photographers Conference awards. She has represented literary clients at ICM Partners, served as Director of Development at Sony Pictures, and as VP of Film & TV at A-Major Media, Hollywood’s first Asian American-driven production company.
How did you get started traveling?
An incredibly fortunate childhood raised by curious parents led to an early injection of wanderlust. My mom was always planning trips to far-flung places that weren’t exactly the norm for a usual Thai mom in Bangkok: places like pre-Walter Mitty Iceland, shortly post-apartheid South Africa, etc. Suffice to say, I inherited their itchy feet.
How did you get started writing?
When we weren’t traveling, we were reading. I grew up in Bangkok—not exactly a city you could wander down the cul-de-sac to see your friends. So I spent my days buried in books, devouring stories and adventures from distant corners of the globe. Writing seemed like a natural progression and its own form of travel. I think it was Rebecca Solnit who wrote that a place is a story, and stories are geography—a way of traveling from here to there. I really wanted to transport readers to magical places, sharing some of that magic.
What do you consider your first “break” as a writer?
Prior to travel writing, I actually began my career as a children’s novelist—and Thailand’s youngest English-writing author. At that time, there weren’t a lot of Thais writing in English, let alone a fifteen year old girl, so it was completely new ground for the industry. Looking back, it was a truly lucky break!
As a traveler and fact/story gatherer, what is your biggest challenge on the road?
Balancing productivity with presence. Anais Nin once said, “We write to taste life twice, in the moment, and in retrospection.” I find that oftentimes, the true value of travel blooms in hindsight. So I try to live more deeply in the moment and soak up as much as I can so that I’m able to conjure the exact feeling later.
I also frequently wind up writing about a place (or a person) once it’s gone…longing can be a potent ingredient for the creative process. It’s why I had to leave Thailand in order to write about it. To become an outsider in my own homeland, to see it from different eyes.
What is your biggest challenge in the research and writing process?
Probably sitting still. It’s fascinating that as travel writers, many of us are inherently restless. Travelers are often peripatetic, but writing requires stillness. So travel writing is a strange dichotomy of the two. Pico Iyer actually called sitting still our workplace—and our battlefield.
What is your biggest challenge from a business standpoint?
For some inexplicable reason, I’ve also always had insane imposter syndrome calling myself a writer. It’s only within the past few years I’ve been able to articulate it. The space has also changed. Having worked on various sides of the industry—from agency to creative—and having seen the numbers, I can confirm how difficult it is to make a living from writing. It’s why I’m very thankful to have other avenues for income—from photography to expeditions. On the plus side, the privilege to liberate the creative process from the pressures of financial success can sometimes mean we’re able to create more freely.
Have you ever done other work to make ends meet?
I joke that I have three simultaneous careers! I’m a writer first and foremost, but also an underwater photographer and the founder of Immersiv Expeditions, where I lead trips around the world to swim with marine wildlife. Prior to going freelance, I cut my teeth as a film executive in Hollywood at companies such as ICM Partners, Sony’s Columbia Pictures, and A-Major Media, producing films and working with screenwriters, directors, authors, and talent.
What travel authors or books might you recommend and/or have influenced you?
The definition of travel writing can be so broad! From Pico Iyer’s narrative non fiction to novels like Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead. Really, all books are travel literature if you want them to be: they transport you elsewhere.
Recent favorites include Four Corners by Kira Salak, Finding Endurance by Darrel Bristow-Bovey, and Place by Justin Fox. I’d also be remiss not to mention Rolf Potts. Vagabonding was one of the first books I read in the genre, and arguably a bible for modern travel literature—a book I frequently gift to friends about to hit the road.
What advice and/or warnings would you give to someone who is considering going into travel writing?
A few years back after the passing of a close friend, I scribbled the opening lines of a story in a South African parking lot. I sent it into one publication—who kindly turned it down—and subsequently shelved it. Months later, the piece wound up winning at the Solas Awards for Best Travel Writing and the Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Awards. The award meant so much more than just some arbitrary win. It came at a time when I’d largely felt disheartened at my own ability at the craft, but most of all, it felt like a tribute to my late friend. It was also a salient reminder that even when you may not believe in your own writing, someone else might see its spark.
Lessons that have helped me along the way:
- A single “no” doesn’t mean your piece isn’t good.
- Cultivate a life that’s as compelling as being away, not just a placeholder where you bide your time on the road to elsewhere. Experience home with some of that wide-eyed wonder usually reserved for adventures abroad.
- Get used to the feeling of having your heart scattered across the world, and feeling at home everywhere and nowhere.
- There is no destination. Publishing a book is the arrival fallacy. The goal is to just keep writing—and enjoy the journey along the way.
What is the biggest reward of life as a travel writer?
Travel writing is an opportunity to deepen your singular experience on this earth—to live deeply, richly, fully. It’s a lesson in being kind and curious, an expansion of horizons and an encouraging prod towards empathy. From the little moments (like an excuse to meander down winding streets or eat your way through a city and get lost in its stories) to the bigger highlights (like being paid to travel to wild corners of the planet and the literal bottom of the earth), travel writing is not just a vocation, but a life.
Luminary storyteller Don George once said, “Your first assignment as a travel writer is to go out there and live as deeply as you can,” and I can’t think of better words to sum up the job.
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