Girlie_in_Sydney

FIONA MILLER posted this on Flickr Blog yesterday and it looks like a good opportunity:

The Flickr Collection on Getty Images has been growing and growing since it launched back in March – with a princely figure of nearly 60,000 images in the collection so far. It’s no secret that there are billions of amazing photographs on Flickr, so it made perfect sense for us to find an easy way for members to suggest their own photos to be considered for the Flickr Collection on Getty Images.

Starting today you can submit a portfolio of 10 images to the Getty Images Call for Artists group, giving you an opportunity to showcase your best shots directly to the editors at Getty Images. The Getty Images creative team will regularly review the photos in the group pool, looking out for images they feel are marketable based on their industry expertise, and inviting new photographers to join the collection.

So, if you think your photos rock and are interested in being considered for the collection, join the Getty Images Call for Artists group and follow the submission guidelines or check out our updated FAQs.

-Posted by Fiona Miller

SETH WRITES “The attached packing list photo is from a brief trip I took to Cambodia from South Korea in October. I spent a six days in Siam Reap, visiting the temples, eating amok (fish curry), and getting my feet wet. The main streets were flooded from the same storms that slammed the Philippines only days before. I gave myself a headache converting from Korean won to Khmer riel to USD and back again.”

Seth also put up a sweet visual packing list with notes here.

Here’s a transcription of the list:

-malarone (the script above says ‘Malaria’ in Hangul/Korean writing)
-advil
-toothbrush/paste
-antacid tables
-razor
-deodorant
-DEET
-toilet paper
-anti-diarrhea medicine (the Hangul at the bottom right is the Korean word for diarrhea. Got some laughs from the pharmacist for that).
-[to buy] hand sanitizer
-[to buy] oral rehydration salts

-camera, memory cards, charger, mini-tripod
-ipod, adapter
-Korean cell phone
-travel alarm clock
-electrical plug adapter
-headlamp

Clothing
-1 jeans
-1 shorts
-1 buttoned shirt, long-sleeved
-3 t-shirts
-5 underwear, socks
-hat
-short sleeve shirt

-ziploc bags
-day pack (didn’t take)
-this black book
-pens
-yellow pad
-reading material (Graham Greene novel)
-travel guide
-passport copy
-umbrella
-money belt-
-$700 USD (only took $300)

Community Connection

Do you make packing lists before you go? What’s the strangest one you’ve ever put together? Tell us about it in the comments. Or if you have a pic or scan (or can take one), please send to david at matadornetworkdotcom.

Bigups to Seth Baker for sending this in, and if you’re looking for more on Cambodia, please check out our resources here.

I CAUGHT this vid on YouTube and wanted to point out that some really solid VO can keep your audience interested and establish a narrative flow.

Aside from being fun to watch, this video is an excellent example of what can make a great travel video. Notice that from the get go the VO establishes who the characters in the story are and their relationship to one another.

Also notice that interviews play a key role in telling the story of the brothers adventure. You won’t always have the camera running when something important happens. What you can do is take some establishing footage after the fact and splice it together with an interview where you describe what is not being seen. The audience has a good imagination and will fill in the gaps.

While the footage is good, I believe what makes this video exceptional is the attention to narrative and story. A solid narrative voice can go a long way my friends. For more video tips read Tips for Travel Video: The Elements of a Story.

Image jiruan

Twitter Lists is a brand-spanking-new feature that allows you to follow groups of Twitter users that are compiled in various lists. This lets you to follow segments of Tweeple that share an affinity and create your own Lists for others to follow.

You can create a List for your fav bloggers, your family, your jilted ex’s…you name it. Because the latest tweets of everybody on the List are displayed in real time, Lists is a great way to get an overview of what a group of related people are talking about.

One of the beautiful things about Lists is that by following a list you are not actually following every person on the List. You are following the List itself. This means you don’t have to add the individual to your main tweet stream, you may simply check in on the List as often as you wish.

I invite you to follow a Matador Team list I have created. By following this list, you can readily see what all of Matador ninjas are tweeting about.

If you don’t follow Matador on Twitter, crawl out from your rock and click here.

Image: Royblumenthal

I READ this comment last night and wondered (and am still wondering) about various things.

Who gets to be the ‘authority’ on what is considered ‘great’?

Is Trisha Miller right? Isn’t it the reader who gets ‘final say’?

What is the “travel blogosphere” exactly?

And where/how does Matador fit into that?

Why does writing, including “great narrative travel writing” seem so far behind music and art in terms of variety of form and style?

Does it have to do with the way we’re taught to ‘compose’ in school?

Is there another way we haven’t thought of already to help students at MatadorU realize new forms?

How do I define ‘great narrative travel writing’?

And if I were truly able to answer that completely, would it mean I was finished as a writer?

Community Connection

What do you think is “great narrative travel writing”? Where do you find it on the “travel blogosphere”? Please share your thoughts with us in the comments.

Img: Torley

BLOGS ARE REALLY just points of entry for conversations. Even the simplest post can lead to comments that build on one another and go in unexpected directions. Something as innocuous as a landscape photo essay can transform into a religious debate.

It’s a stoke to see (and moderate) the evolution of comments around a post when this happens. But when a piece either gets popular enough, or if it’s thought-provoking enough, or even if you get one person with hurt feelings (or someone just plain out of control) in the mix, the whole conversation can devolve into a shitstorm. People begin attacking each other or the author personally. Some take the ultimate ‘weak-ass’ route and threaten to sue. It’s ugly and tedious to deal with, but it’s also something you can take a kind of pride in dealing with–you know you’re being read.

With that in mind, here are some thoughts our whole team had on dealing with comments:

Have a stated moderation policy.

As Andy Hayes notes, “There is precedent for bloggers being successfully sued for comments on their blog, so clearly reserve your right to remove or edit libelous, profane or otherwise unacceptable content.”

At Matador we have a liberal policy towards letting voices be heard. We let most comments stand unless they’re outright hateful or spam.

As Julie Schwietert notes, there’s a distinction between censorship and fostering good conversation. “I don’t view deleting inflammatory, hostile, or non-productive comments in the back end as censorship, especially when those comments are made by someone who wants to hide behind the relative anonymity that the Internet can provide.”

Shut down comments if necessary.

If it’s your site, then it’s your territory. Some people may view this as censorship, but it’s still your right to take down comments if a conversation has devolved completely. A good idea is to simply leave a note stating what happened as clearly and transparently as possible.

Address mistakes or issues that people bring up.

Make a mistake in the article? Fix it. Were you wrong? Admit it. Everybody makes mistakes, so take it constructively (even if the commenter is less than professional about it).

Community connection

How do you deal with out of control comments on your blog while still trying to maintain and promote good conversation? Let us know in the comments.

RECENTLY I THOUGHT: Does what I write matter? Aside from being a way to express myself, does my writing actually serve a purpose?

It seems to me that most travel writing doesn’t matter. Personal adventures, marketing couched as ‘destination pieces’, and ‘look-how-cool-my-trip-was’ essays seem to make up so much of amateur and even professional travel writing.

Most people don’t seem to mind their travel writing doesn’t matter. They are writing to relive the experience for themselves, or to ‘be creative’, or to try and make money. Which is fine. I do the same.

But I have to ask myself: Why am I writing? Why should I continue? How can I take the next step in my travel writing?

I would like to become much more relevant. I want what I write to matter. And by “matter” I mean be important, relevant, timely, and meaningful to the community at large. To help evolve literary forms, to encourage readers to gain new perspectives. But how?

This is not a post with answers. This is a post with questions.

• Where are the spaces we can fill that traditional writing leaves vacant?
• What stories can we tell that matter?
• What should our goals as individuals and as a community be?
• How can we make our travel, and the writing that comes of it, more timely and relevant?
• What are the elements of relevant travel writing?
• How can we incorporate those elements in our writing?

I put it to you. Please respond in the comments with your thoughts and if your travel writing does indeed matter, tell us why.

Crappy photos by author, who had had a few cocktail by the time he got to snapping.

THE EXPATRIATES of Buenos Aires all came together at a club called Sugar, for the purpose of seeing Barack Obama sworn in as the 42nd president. The dive-y club in Palermo was having a Moment, having marketed their venue as the only place to see the event live, with superior sound and on a big screen. As it turns out, the operation was really a jerry-rigged computer projector with a herky-jerky picture and intermittent sound.

Classic movie setup in Bs.As.

Anderson Cooper’s normally competent voice came through at intervals. “Arriving in the. And here you can see. For which we have all been waiting.”

Nobody seemed to care that they were watching the event on a setup that rivaled those found in most adult movie emporiums.

The room was filled with people who all had one thing in common; they had fled America, short term or long term. A majority of the permanent residents seemed to have left post-Clinton, none of them imagining then that they would eventually bump into a president who promised to unite the country, if not the world. They were Bush-haters, thrilled to have a big ‘ol target on which to blame their problems.

“America went the way of chain restaurants. It was McAmerica”, explained Bill, a former engineer from Georgia, who was slurping down an ethnic meal consisting of a Budweiser and chicken wings. He then broke into a diatribe I have heard many times. It involved him recalling things that he remembered before The United States had gone tits-up, things that were placed memories, romantic visions that existed for the purpose of justifying his geographic displacement.

Imagine, for a minute, an antique Coca Cola vending machine. The old-fashioned kind that dispensed small, adorable bottles for a nickel. We’ve had this image placed into our brains mostly through advertising, or at least from a film studio’s clever prop department. It is an image that feels incredibly American – an image that reeks of small town comfort.

The truth is that you may have probably only run into a handful of these in your life, most likely in a setting where they are intended to be flashback-y and kitsch. You’re not foolish enough to believe that the world would be transformed if we could still plop down a nickel for a miniature soda.

But I really think that this is the deluded, romantic vision that guys like Bill are holding onto. He needs to think that the Coke machine is still important. He left America in search of things that never even really existed in his life, things that he had convinced himself would make him happy. Bill wants a nickel coke and instead he’s gotten Barrack Obama.

I recently had dinner with a former New Yorker, who is now living in Buenos Aires. He rolled his eyes as he explained that many Expats were thinking of returning to the USA now that Bush was leaving office. As I began talking to more folks at Sugar, it indeed seemed this way.

Barbara left home after her husband cheated on her, leaving her a stockpile of cash awarded by an “asskicking judge”. In Argentina she found that her money went further, that healthcare was cheaper (often free) and that she could make money by fact-checking for a US based company.

Now, she said, things were changing. Inflation was approaching 35% a year and little things were starting to nag at her. “I miss salad dressing. I know that sounds stupid. But they don’t make it here – you cannot find a bottle in the grocery to save your life.” Obama and blue cheese were promise enough for her to consider a move back to Kentucky.

News cameras were present, looking for easy pickup shots that they would use to cut into the nightly news. Several seats were reserved for journalists; men in sandals and jeans who ate nachos with such ferocity that I could only imagine their first below-the-belt encounter with a female.

Behind me sat the two girls that I’ve been trying to avoid for all of my traveling life; sorority sisters from Tennessee. Their voices are always impossible to block. They mix eloquent words from AP English class with idiocy. “This is like, so monumental. All of my African American friends are like, so proud.”

The telecast proceeded mostly as I had anticipated it would. There was hissing when George W Bush was announced for his last puzzled-looking shot as a president. The crowd’s fury turned to pandemonium as Obama made his way to the screen. It felt more like watching Hulk Hogan enter a wrestling wring than it did a president approaching a deus. Then, thankfully, there was silence as he was sworn into office.

The moment did not provide the chills that I had wanted it to and I wondered if this was because I was not in America, surrounded by people who had no choice but to slug through the next four years of turmoil. I was surrounded by people who had made a life outside of The United States, yet still held some kind of buyer’s remorse with this decision.

Their quality of life had improved but they had traded their American soul in return. These were people who were constantly looking to justify their decision and maybe, just maybe, the man on the screen in front of them was going to make America a better place than where they currently sat. Which would make them very wrong about many things.

It felt like they all secretly wished it hadn’t happened.

Community Connection

Were you traveling or outside of the country during Obama’s inauguration? Tell us about it in the comments below.

Packing list from armigeress. Bookmark?

I HAVE A WEEK to pack for Patagonia. My family and I are heading there ‘indefinitely’. This means we need to bring paperwork. Tax records. Birth certificates. All that very important shite.

But I know this will be the last thing I pack. Good gear is hard to find / expensive in South America, and as I start packing, I find my real concerns are:

*If it costs extra to bring the snowboard bag anyway, how much extra gear can I stuff in there? [We'll see.]
*Is it worth taking paddling gear down there? [I'm thinking not yet.]
*Should I pack the kids’ size snowshoes for Layla? [I'm thinking yes.]
*Do I buy a spare headlamp? [Shit, there's no REI or any real gear stores down here in Florida.]
*Should I have tried to get North Face to send me a replacement parka after this one ripped? [Too late.]
*Do we have room for both hammocks? [No.]
*Do I go into more debt to buy one of those mini-laptops in case our Mac goes down and we’re screwed? [I think we have to.]

All this being said, I wondered this morning about packing lists. Like notes or journal entries, they seem really transparent windows into your travel style, into your personal style, and they even say something about the place you’re going.

Earlier this year we called for scans or pictures of people’s unedited journal pages
[this submission call is still open, btw], now we’re calling for your packing lists. Please send either a picture or scan of an unedited, actual packing list from an actual trip. The photo or scan should be sized to 930 pixels wide. Please include as well a typed description of what’s on the list, along with any notes describing the trip, itinerary, or anything else we should know.

Please send your packing lists to david at matadornetwork dot com. If interested, we’ll let you know further details. Looking forward to seeing your submissions.

Anjuna Traveler w/ Massage Ladies. Img: innacoz

She pointed to a spot in the sand. A spot like any other.

“That’s where they found Scarlett Keeling’s body,” Aimee Ginsburg told me. Ginsburg has lived for almost a decade in Goa. She is the India correspondent of Yediot Aharonot, Israel’s largest newspaper. I saw her as the all-seeing eye of videshi (foreigner) Goa.

We were walking on the beach in Anjuna. A heavy mist, like rolled iron, was banked over the Arabian Sea. A good day to contemplate young ghosts. Keeling, a fifteen-year-old British tourist, was raped and murdered in March of 2008. It inspired some in the Indian press to inveigh against the perils of hedonistic excess among Westerners who winter here.

I am interested in Goa because of its collection of strange ghosts. Jews were burned at the stake at Campo de Sao Lazaro during the Portuguese Inquisition in the sixteenth century. (Goa was a Portuguese colony until the 1960’s.) I personally am fond of the drug and bliss ghosts of the 60’s. Had I stayed on, I had the potential, I think, to be a good hippie ghost, discharging quiet sighs beneath coconut trees.

I was philosophical about the bare European breasts peering up at me lazily from the warm sand. Seeing them was in a way like seeing saddhus in Benares. They infused the beach with its particular character.

But sometimes the young girl’s shadow would make a noise, jamming my sensual signals. I’d walk on, saying her name under my breath.

Photo simpologist

WRITER’S RETREATS are more than just a places to stay. In addition to space, many provide community support, resources, and workshops to help writers improve their skills while they complete major writing projects.

Retreats can last anywhere from a few weeks or months to a whole year, and vary in structure. Some have set time limits while others allow the writer a choice of schedules. Even the number of artists in residences at one time varies greatly depending on the program.

Gaining acceptance into one of the more established programs is nearly unheard of for beginning writers, however don’t get discouraged. At more-recently established retreats, less experienced writers have an excellent shot at acceptance.

Residencies are located all over the world and welcome writers at all levels. Some are genre-specific, focusing on poetry or fiction. Here are a few retreats that welcome writers of creative nonfiction, which includes travel writing.

Edward F. Albee Foundation William Flanagan Memorial Creative Persons Center, New York

www.albeefoundation.org

Edward F. Albee Foundation William Flanagan Memorial Creative Persons Center, also known as “The Barn” is an artist’s retreat in Montauk, New York, that accepts up to five guests at a time for stays of 4-6 weeks from May to October. There’s no application fee and no charge to stay at the retreat, but space is limited and admissions are highly competitive.

Applicants for non-fiction residencies will need to submit three essays or articles, a resume, a one page “artist’s statement”, and two letters of recommendation. Applications are accepted from January 1 to March 1.

Artcroft Creative Residency Program, Kentucky

www.artcroft.org

Located an hour northeast of Lexington, the Artcroft Creative Residency Program accepts creative nonfiction writers for retreats of 2-4 weeks all year round. The program accepts up to six artists at a time and there is no charge.

The colony provides transportation from the airport and basic food staples and in return residents are expected to contribute 20 hours per week to working on the farm and in the community. Applicants will need to submit the $30 application fee, two personal and two professional references, a resume, a one-page description of the work they wish to undertake during the retreat, two work samples, and proposals for the work they can contribute to the community and to the retreat’s work exchange.

Leighton Artists Colony at the Banff Center, Alberta, Canada

www.banffcentre.ca

Leighton Artists Colony at the Banff Center offers ongoing flexible-stay retreats for artists, writers, and composers. There is a $75 application fee, a nightly charge for residency and an optional meal plan at additional cost. Scholarships are available.

First time applicants will need to submit a resume, a description of the project they’ll be working on, three letters of recommendation, and a selection of published works or manuscripts in progress. Applications are accepted throughout the year, but should be submitted six months before the desired residency dates.

The Writer’s Colony at Dairy Hollow , Arkansas

www.writerscolony.org

The Writer’s Colony at Dairy Hollow offers stays of two weeks to three months from mid-March to mid-December to writers of genres including non-fiction, journalism, and culinary writing. Writers are asked to contribute what they can to the cost of their stay, though fellowships are available to help fund the retreat. There is no application fee.

To apply, writers need to submit a list of publications and of any prizes they’ve been awarded, two references, and a work sample of no more than ten pages. Each writer will also be asked to contribute time to a local outreach program during the stay. Applications are due in September for the following year.

Writers in the Heartland, Illinois

www.writersintheheartland.org

Writers in the Heartland, located in central Illinois, opened in 2008 and hosted its first writers in 2009. Up to five writers at a time will be welcomed for stays of one week, two weeks or one month in September or October. For the first year, only writers from the Midwest were accepted, but this may change in the future.

There is a $15 application fee, but accommodations and meals at the retreat are free. Prospective residents will need to submit a cover letter, resume, and work sample of 25 pages or less by mid-April for the following year. As this colony is new, it isn’t well known, so there might not be much competition and newer writers may have a better chance of being accepted.

The Martha’s Vineyard Writer’s Residency, Massachusetts

www.writersresidency.com

The Martha’s Vineyard Writer’s Residency is another newcomer. It was established in 2007 and welcomes up to eight writers at a time to stay for two weeks to one month during October. The residency cost is $150 per week, which includes accommodation in a historic inn, but not meals or transportation.

For consideration, applicants need to submit a biography with publication history, a work sample of up to 20 pages, and a statement of purpose outlying the project that will be undertaken at the retreat. Applications are due via email by March 1 for the October residency.

Andrew’s Forest Writers Residency, Oregon

www.andrewsforest.oregonstate.edu

The Long-Term Ecological Reflections Program at the Andrews Forest in Oregon is a residency offered to writers “whose work reflects a keen awareness of the natural world”. Depending on the project that will be undertaken while at the residency, this could include travel writers.

Residents stay for one week during March, April, May, September, October, or November, and receive a stipend of $250. Applications include a work sample of up to 15 pages and a one-page statement describing the writer’s proposed project and how it fits into the mission of the Forest. While at the retreat, writers will have the chance to work with research scientists and their writing will appear in The Forest Log anthology.

Hedgebrook – Washington

www.hedgebrook.org

Up to seven women writers at a time stay at Hedgebrook, a colony on the coast of Washington state, for 2-6 weeks from February to November. Several hundred apply each year but only about 40 are chosen, so the competition is tough.

The retreat accepts both published and unpublished writed, so even those who haven’t made a name for themselves have a fair shot. The application costs $25 but the program is free. Application requirements include a writing sample of up to five pages and two personal essays. The essays detail the work of the writer, why she wishes to attend the retreat at Hedgebrook, and how her work will benefit from her time there. Applications are accepted through September for the following year.

This is only a small sampling of the residency programs out there. Here are some things to consider when choosing your residency.

Overall Considerations for Writer’s Retreats

Don’t worry about geography.

With the exception of the cost of getting to the colony, the location matters little. You can just as easily find a secluded space in the middle of a big city as you can in a more rural area. The setting is more important.

If you need fresh air and nature, pick a retreat set on a farm or forest where you can go for walks on the property when you need a break. If you require more stimulation, a colony in a city or small town might better.

Determine Your Preferred Work Style

Some retreats offer complete solitude. Others have a more communal atmosphere after work hours. Some offer a dedicated studio space and others expect writers to work in their rooms. Think about which situation will allow you to focus most easily and choose the retreat that fits your style best.

Calculate All the Costs

The total cost of the colony is more than the price of staying there. If food and transportation aren’t included, figure that in as well. If you work full time, keep in mind the cost of the salary you’ll be sacrificing.

This many affect how long you can afford to stay at the colony. A few retreats offer short stays. If the price is more than you can afford, look into retreats that offer fellowships to defray the cost.

Apply to Several Retreats

Applying to more than one retreat may increase your chances of being accepted. If a more popular retreat rejects you, a less well-known one might gladly welcome you. Being flexible on dates and applying to year-round retreats may also help you get accepted. If you are rejected one year, you can always apply again the following year.

Community Connection

Do you have experience as a writer in residence? Have you always wanted to take a writers retreat? If you were to dedicate 6 months to writing what would it be?

Image: 5533

THIS POST really began 3 weeks ago in a piece called 3 writing styles that ruin your stories. It was supposed to be about awareness of styles, but what really came out was an attack on marketing language.

I feel like I’ve been trying to clarify something in my mind ever since.

A couple weeks later, David Page wrote “Do ‘freebies’ undermine honesty in travel writing?” It was a reaction to the New York Times and Newsweek and other publications’ policies prohibiting writers from having any “material connection” (i.e. comps or freebies) to their subject matter, which, as he pointed out, often leads to writers simply pretending they don’t have material connections.

Finally, yesterday, as I was finishing a very quick post on the circulation losses all but one of the top 25 major dailies I wrote “news needs to come from ever more local sources, and, in my opinion, be liberated of the classic ‘objective’ paradigm, moving instead towards a new ethic of material transparency.”

That last little term just kind of appeared. I don’t remember reading it anywhere, but it seems to describe what it is I’ve been thinking about over the past few weeks. And since I feel like I’m claiming it here, I need to elaborate:

Material Transparency:

1. Material Transparency is an underpinning or ethic of a writer’s personal brand.

It’s based on the artistic goal of writing with as much credibility or transparency as possible, (see this piece by Tom Gates for a good example), and the professional goal of having this transparency or style itself be ‘marketable’.

2. The original blueprint for Material Transparency is New Journalism.

When Truman Capote, Hunter S. Thompson, Norman Mailer, Joan Didion, and others abandoned ‘objective’ reporting, instead writing subjectively and recognizing their own part in / effect on a story, they revealed truths about character, place, and events that could not be accessed otherwise.

3. The key stylistic element of Material Transparency is self-awareness.

When a writer simply says something, but says it in a way that is overtly aware of his / her limitations, problems, dilemmas, biases, stoke, it increases credibility. When a writer uses words or rhetoric to ’suggest’ something, it becomes less transparent.

4. The key professional element of Material Transparency is self-promotion and/or promotion of your crew.

The currency of the internet is mentions, pageviews, links. Whether the mentions are positive or negative seems to matter less than how many there are.

How can you use your unique story, style, and material connections to increase the relevance of your own personal brand and thus make you more attractive to other writers, editors, sponsors, publishers?

5. Getting paid or comped or sponsored or hooked up in any way always has to be recognized explicitly.

Ideally this should be part of the story itself, part of the narration. Sponsors, advertisers, people in your crew–the biggest way you can promote them is to include them in your story.

6. Any product or service or artistic work that is reviewed must be done earnestly and transparently.

Remember that even reviewing something negatively still generates publicity for someone and has the overall effect of building interest.

7. Respect for other writers is based on skill and style as opposed to favoritism, or a writer’s putative achievements or recognition.

You should name who your influences are, be open about what you’re reading, listening to.

8. If everyone were materially transparent, we might not like what we read about ourselves or the world, but we’d have a better idea of who our friends and enemies really are.

Journalists should follow the example of Jorge Lanata and explicitly state their political positions.

Community Connection

Please share your thoughts and comments below.

Here are 4 of 157 videos Thomas has on his YouTube channel. Aside from shooting his own video, Thomas wants you to learn the techniques and gain the tools to fund your travels with video production.

How to make money with travel videos

Tutorial 1: Setting up your tripod and panning

Tutorial 2: How to record good audio

Here is an excellent example of Thom’s work:

Adelaide to Alice Springs Outback 4WD Safari

Visit Thom’s website, Filmingholidays.com or hit him up on his YouTube channel.

COMMUNITY CONNECTION

Get your fill of travel videos with 7 Most Inspiring Travel Video Channels on YouTube then once you are filled with inspiration, edit your own footage and upload to our YouTube group!

Image: dagpic

These numbers came out yesterday from Editor and Publisher. The only gain made by any top 25 newspaper was a less than 1% circulation increase by The Wall Street Journal.

Check out some of the losses. SF Chronicle down by more than 25 percent.

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL — 2,024,269 — 0.61%
USA TODAY — 1,900,116 — (-17.15%)
THE NEW YORK TIMES — 927,851 — (-7.28%)
LOS ANGELES TIMES — 657,467 — (-11.05%)
THE WASHINGTON POST — 582,844 — (-6.40%)

DAILY NEWS (NEW YORK) — 544,167 — (-13.98%)
NEW YORK POST — 508,042 — (-18.77%)
CHICAGO TRIBUNE — 465,892 — (-9.72%)
HOUSTON CHRONICLE — 384,419 — (-14.24%)
THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER — 361,480 — N/A

NEWSDAY — 357,124 — (-5.40%)
THE DENVER POST — 340,949 — N/A
THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC — 316,874 — (-12.30%)
STAR TRIBUNE, MINNEAPOLIS — 304,543 — (-5.53%)
CHICAGO SUN-TIMES — 275,641 — (-11.98%)

The PLAIN DEALER, CLEVELAND — 271,180 — (-11.24%)
DETROIT FREE PRESS (e) — 269,729 — (-9.56%)
THE BOSTON GLOBE — 264,105 — (-18.48%)
THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS — 263,810 — (-22.16%)
THE SEATTLE TIMES — 263,588 — N/A

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE — 251,782 — (-25.82%)
THE OREGONIAN — 249,163 — (-12.06%)
THE STAR-LEDGER, NEWARK — 246,006 — (-22.22%)
SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE — 242,705 — (-10.05%)
ST. PETERSBURG (FLA.) TIMES — 240,147 — (-10.70%)

I’d be interested to see a side by side comparison of these numbers with corresponding increases or decreases of traffic on newspapers’ websites.

Questions:

How is this overall trend impacting journalism school applications?

Which major city (population over 5 million) will be the first to go without a daily newspaper?

I’m not sure exactly how I feel about all of this. I remember Eva Holland mentioning all the travel editors at Book Passage last year foreseeing this and thinking ‘well, now we’ll have time to write our books.’

I guess my thought is that this is all part of the evolution of the form. News needs to come from ever more local sources, and, in my opinion, be liberated of the classic ‘objective’ paradigm, moving instead towards a new ethic of material transparency.

Community Connection

Please share your thoughts and ideas in the comments below.

Mural of Neruda in Chile. Photo: Magical-World

It all started with Neruda. Ten summers ago I read Full Woman, Fleshly Apple, Hot Moon, a bilingual edition translated by Stephen Mitchell.

At the time I knew nothing about Neruda or the way poetry and language could ‘define’ a place in time. Up until then the only thing that had done that was music.

That summer I was a camp counselor. I taught kids how to paddle. I’d go around dropping Neruda lines on anyone who’d listen–campers, other counselors. It became kind of a joke actually. I’d leave the book out so anyone could read it, and damn if it didn’t help to define that particular summer, the summer Neruda visited Camp High Meadows.

As I read the lines my eyes would drift across to the Spanish original and the strangely accented, Latinate words. I became fascinated and then all out obsessed. I wanted this language and rhythm and landscape.

All different factors came together after that. A couple thousand saved up. A gnarly breakup with longtime girlfriend. Within a year I was on a bus in Latin America listening to cumbia, head-tripped and depressed and stoked and trying to absorb the words.

My whole life has flowed from this. Strangely, it feels like ever since I’ve been both ‘living it’ and at the same time have been trying to ‘get back to it’. I think this is where writing comes from. Not writing so much as it’s framed in debates like this one, but more in the sense of writing as an almost existential need.

Poetry is the original form of storytelling (Iliad, Odyssey), and epic voyages were always at the center. In the 19th century, Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass was all about travel and place. In the mid 20th century was Neruda. Later you have Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and probably most importantly as far as travel and place, Gary Snyder.

Later in the late 20th century you have Raymond Carver, who wrote poems about looking out of windows in Europe and runways in Buenos Aires and street fairs in Mexico as well as into the strait from his own backyard in Port Angeles Washington.

As far as people still living, Jim Harrison writes poems about travel and places in Montana, Michigan, and the desert southwest. Billy Collins and Ted Kooser’s poems have elements of place, but seem more about little moments of ’seeing’ than anything else.

Moving from there to the younger generations, the only well known poet I can think of whose work has elements of travel or place is Sherman Alexie. But it’s interesting, place is usually just a backdrop in his work–there are few trees, mountains, rivers.

Who is doing it now as far as upcoming generations? Most of the poets I’ve been reading online lately like Tao Lin, Brandon Scott Gorell, and Kathryn Regina write about the world in a way that is very detached from location or travel. Is anyone writing something that could be called travel poetry, or poetry that focuses on place? I googled travel poetry and the results were ultra thin.

Looking at this progression (albeit not very comprehensively), I wonder:

Are we moving towards a language and poetry where place names, geography, knowledge of terrain, and ‘identity’ based on place is no longer relevant?

Has the only ‘legitimate’ form for writing on travel and place become limited to the narrative essay or memoir?

Who is writing poetry now that explores connections with place and travel?

Community Connection

Please let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Harbor in Långedrag, near Gothenburg. Photo: Anna Brones

Number of SAABS and Volvos on the road: too many to count

Family members visited: 9

Family members that own a SAAB or Volvo: 8

Number of times I’ve traveled alone with my mother since the age of 15 before this trip: 0

Times my mother and I were frustrated about not being able to talk about people in public because they spoke Swedish too: 26

Cities visited: 5

Hours spent in Stockholm: 7

Hours spent walking in Stockholm: 6

Number of times I consulted a Stockholm map: 1

Total hours spent on trains: 9

Cost of buying Karlstad to Stockholm train ticket at last minute: 600 SEK

Crayfish consumed in one evening in Gothenburg: 7

Days spent in Sweden: 10

Days someone mentioned threat of Swine Flu: 10

Jokes made about Swine Flu: 2

Swedes I know who think they’ve had Swine Flu: 1

Minutes between landing in Gothenburg and seeing an IKEA: 11

Bags of Swedish candy brought back in suitcase: 6

Meals that included potatoes: 10

Meals of blood pudding: 4

Days with less than two fika (coffee break): 1

Starbucks sightings: 0

IKEA sightings: 3

Postcards sent with photos of topless sunbathers: 3

Topless sunbather sightings: 0

Articles read in newspaper about the Swedish Royal Family: 3

Times I’ve been to Sweden: over 15

Number of bright green, marzipan covered Princesstarta (Princess Cake) eaten: 1

Fast food restaurants visited: 0

Age that I first learned to speak Swedish: 0

Times I had to speak English: 0

Pictures taken with bikes in them: 53

Time in the morning people started buying liquor at Stockholm Airport Duty Free: 6

Cans of reindeer pate snuck through customs: 2

Helpful: board, terrain, crew. Img: Laura Bernhein

SINCE BLOGGING ABOUT NaNoWriMo I’ve been thinking about what increases or decreases my ‘productivity’ as a writer.

First up, I believe that writing is a discipline, a craft, and that the most important thing is just dedicating time to it no matter where you are or what the environment is. That’s why I like the idea of NaNoWriMo.

But looking back over my journals from this past summer I realize there are just these flow-enhancing factors. Here are some of mine:

*Being on some kind of road trip where there’s a surf or paddle or snowboard mission involved.

*Working with my hands–carpentry, splitting wood, cleaning dishes–and always cooking something.

*Camping anywhere where this situation exists: at night you look around and see your family and friends around the fire.

What’s your most productive writing environment? Please let us know in the comments section.

Community Connection

For more on writing, check out Matador’s writing focus page.

EVERY NOVEMBER, a large group of people (there were more than 100,000 in 2007) who have signed up with NaNoWriMo begin writing with the goal of completing a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. The program website states:

Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.

Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It’s all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.

Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that’s a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.

It would be easy to make fun of this if I didn’t think it would actually be kind of fun to try (if I had time), and I didn’t believe there were benefits to just ‘dump it all out’ style writing where you don’t think but just type.

Questions:

*Has anyone at Matador or from elsewhere participated at NaNoWrMo? What was your experience?

*Is anyone interested in trying this year?

*What benefits are there to just sitting down and ‘freewriting’?

Please give your answers in the comments section below.

Community Connection

For more info on NaNoWriMo, check their site here.

Thrillist goes to Jamaica, Gaelen Harlacher photo

EVERY SO OFTEN, like the other day on Twitter (scroll through #twethics and you’ll get the gist), an old debate gets reheated about the relationship between the integrity of a particular piece of travel writing and who paid the bills to make it happen.

This round was brought on by the shameful discovery that Mike Albo, sometime contributor to the NYT, and Kurt Soller of Newsweek (Washington Post Co), had, in flagrant violation of their publications’ policies (i.e. No Freebies Allowed—Ever), enjoyed a lavish free trip to Jamaica, courtesy of Thrillist and Jet Blue.

The traditional theory being, of course, that as a “professional” journalist you should not be financially beholden to the subject you’re covering, but rather to the publication you’re writing for—and, by extension, your readers. Which sounds like a good idea. It’s not a long-standing tradition, mind you, in the grand history of storytelling and news/gossip/culture/advice delivery, but one that many people have come to feel very strongly about.

Gawker jumped on the transgressors. The publications in question backpedaled. Then came the twitstorm: “i wld feel gross abt all this if i wasnt so poor,” tweeted Albo. [author's note: and then he got fired.]

Which hit on an essential question: how is the average dirtbag travel journo—especially In These Times—supposed to pay for the travel he or she is writing about?

The whole thing is, of course, a bottomless can of worms.

Perhaps the best way to maintain independence as a travel writer is to have a large trust fund, or a productive uranium mine. The next best thing is to find oneself On Assignment for a well-endowed national publication that insists on paying all expenses. Which dreamy situation is unlike winning the lottery only in that it requires significantly more scratching. Like way beyond where the fingers bleed.

But what if you’re writing on spec? Or for one of the ever-proliferating legion of yet-to-be-monetized online mags (like, uh, this one)? What if you’re writing a guidebook, where even for a big-name series the budget for expenses (i.e. research) is, as the notorious and oft-reviled and also bestselling Thomas Kohnstamm famously pointed out: zero?

Do you just wander around the hallways of the five-star hotel and maybe sit on the beds? Or maybe just do a little critical reworking of the texts and images on the website? Or—what the hell, in the interest of actual experiential travel—do you accept a free night?

Then: is it enough to make it clear to your host that the free night—and the bottle of Armagnac and the fruit basket and the T-shirt and the go-go dancers, the custom skis and the moonlight horseback ride on the beach—will not necessarily translate to a flattering review? Are you strong enough to walk that line?

One amusing analogy made the rounds and was enjoyed by all:

worldhum Ha! RT @AEEvans Christopher Columbus went on a press trip to the Bahamas paid for by Queen Isabella PR & will never write for NYT #twethics”

Amusing indeed. But specious. The fact is, Columbus was on assignment, out to get the facts for his sponsors (like Marco Polo before him, and all manner of explorers and chroniclers thereafter, from Magellan to Lewis & Clark to Mark Twain to a well-addled Hunter S. Thompson in a hotel suite covering the Super Bowl for Rolling Stone). Had the ambitious Genoan’s ships and provisions been paid for by the Bahamas Tourism Bureau, his reports on the natives might have been filed with a slightly different tint.

Consider, by way of example, the late David Foster Wallace’s hilarious chronicle of a $3,000 Caribbean Cruise he once failed to enjoy, paid for by Harper’s Magazine. Would he have found himself tempering his irreverence ever so slightly had the trip been paid for by Celebrity Cruises, Inc.? Or would he have been able to spin it into even more hilarity?

The sad fact is, even straight-up assignment gigs may not be quite as squeaky as we’d like to think. Check out, for example, Chuck Thompson on NPR discussing the extent to which advertising drives content in the glossy travel mags, and how the result is, as he so eloquently puts it: “witless puffery, or the sun-dappled barf of travel writing.”

A cursory review of the latest glossies (i.e. Nat Geo Adventure) proves we’re headed ever more perilously in that direction. So do we consign ourselves to second-hand service schlock from the comfort of our respective caves? Or do we, as we always have, take it on the road and do our best to find a good couch to crash on?

This one, I think, hit the proverbial nail on the head:

“RT @nerdseyeview readers are best judge of ethics. write like a shill, they’re gone. write honestly, they stay. #twethics”

The reality, alas, is that it may take more than honesty to draw a reader all the way to the end of a piece of writing. But, well, it’s hard to think of a better place to start.

Community Connection

For more on the subject, check out Ian MacKenzie on the fizzle of Travel Channel’s “Confessions of a Travel Writer,” or Tim Patterson on the multiple personalities of travel writers.

What are your 2 cents? WTF are we to do? Help us out: tell us about it below.

Later he takes his coffee (and a pancake formed in the shape of a squirrel by his visiting mother-in-law) to the basement, where, surrounded by exposed insulation, and with the light coming up on the trees outside, he puts off the task at hand—that of writing the texts for a guide to winter adventure in Mammoth, as commissioned by the Ski Area.

He scrolls through the morning’s tweets, comes upon the following from (of all possible sources) the Comfort Inn in Bishop (@ComfortInn395):

Check this video out–Winter in the Woods-Backcountry Skiing in the Sierra Nevada.

And so he does, of course, and is immediately transported far beyond his cluttered desk, beyond the world of newspapers and social media and a too-sluggish computer, to an earlier time—a better time, he cannot help but think—and a time very soon to come:

And now he is ready for winter.

Thank you David Huebner. For more of his goods—writing, photography, video—check out backofbeyond.org.