Friends and vagabonders,
2006 is keeping me busy with writing and writing assignments — perhaps most notably my new weekly gig as the “Traveling Light” columnist at Yahoo! News. This, in addition to freelance articles I’ve written for Surfer (about long-term travel), Islands (about kayaking in Crete), Outside Traveler (about sailing in Greece), and the San Francisco Chronicle (about an island in India). I also had a couple of humorous, experimental-voice travel essays appear online — “The Art of Writing a Story About Walking Across Andorra,” which appeared in World Hum (and garnered notice from Arts & Letters Daily), and “Tantric Sex for Dilettantes,” which appeared in Perceptive Travel. Upcoming travels on my spring/summer docket include the Dominican Republic, France (see below), Sweden, Germany, and the Czech Republic.
In the book world, I’m happy to announce my appearance in several new travel anthologies, including Travelers’ Tales excellent new The Best Travel Writing 2006, which debuted in February. In May, my story “Signs of Confusion” will appear in Jen Leo’s new travel-humor compendium, What Color Is Your Jockstrap: Funny Men and Women Write from the Road, and in August my brand-new tale “The Living Museum of Everywhere and Nowhere” will appear in Lonely Planet’s Lonely Planet Tales from Nowhere: A Literary Journey, which is edited by Don George.
The Travel Writers portion of my website has featured interviews with Lea Aschkenas, Franz Wisner, Karl Taro Greenfeld, and Amanda Jones in recent months. Keep an eye out for upcoming 2006 interviews with John Flinn, David Downie, Tom Haines, and Clay Hubbs.
Finally, for those interested in studying creative writing in beautiful environs of Paris this summer, I will once again be teaching a Creative Nonfiction course in Paris in July of 2006.
For the latest news on my travels, as well as travel information and advice, surf over to my blog, Vagablogging.net.
Cheers — and happy vagabonding,
Rolf