Wise Words from Working Writers
Matador’s own Tim Patterson popped up in an interview on Written Road this week — you can read it here — and the discussion (with another Matador member, Anna Brones) got me thinking about all the great interviews out there on the interwebs.
About a year and a half ago now, when I had just come home and started working an office job that I hoped would pay my way into the world of travel writing, I spent a lot of time cruising the net and trying to figure out the “secret” to making it.
I read a lot of interviews with writers in that time, and while I eventually realized that there is no “secret”, I did learn an awful lot.
So, to accompany Tim’s excellent interview, here are a few more favourites:
Pico Iyer: On Travel and Travel Writing — This in-depth interview with Iyer, from World Hum, is jammed full of useful insights and fascinating biographical bits and pieces.
In this May 2006 installment of Rolf Potts’ monthly travel writing interviews, San Francisco Chronicle travel editor John Flinn is as helpful and funny as always.
David Miller’s interview with Outside Magazine’s Eric Hansen always stuck with me for, among other things, Hansen’s anecdotes about looking for one story, and finding another, in Italy.
Tim Patterson’s interview with Perceptive Travel editor Tim Leffel, over at Brave New Traveler, is another one that stayed with me, for its blunt take on the differences between alternative, online travel writing and mainstream print publications.
Read up when you get the chance, and for more interview fun, check out the World Hum Q&A archive, the Written Road interview archive, the Rolf Potts Writers archive, and the BNT interview archive.
And after you’re done all that reading, make with the writing already!
Photo by rachel_thecat (Creative Commons)
