Interview: Landon Spencer

After receiving a master’s degree in English, this week’s Best Women’s Travel Writing 2010 contributor ran away from academia and joined the circus: Landon Spencer.

When did you first hit the road?  How did it go?

I come from a family that doesn’t travel much (my father is married to a Mexican-American woman and lives in Southern California but has never been to Mexico) so I’m still surprised sometimes when I look around at this life on the road that I’ve been living.

About five years ago I abruptly gave up everything that was stable in my life.  I indulged in a couple of months of semi-depressed wine-and-chocolate directionless limbo.  Then the circus called, quite literally.  Cavalia, an acrobatic and equestrian show, knew that I had done some trick riding and roping in my youth and asked if I was interested in auditioning.  “Come and play with us…” beckoned the French accented message left on my phone.  Though it had been ten years since I’d even sat on a horse, I knew it was the opportunity I was waiting for.  I joined the show in Montreal and have been touring North America and Europe with Cavalia ever since.

Deadlines for Lifelines: Little Magazines

Little magazines — also known as literary journals or lit mags — have a long, illustrious history in U.S. publishing. They first appeared in the early nineteenth century, and today number in the hundreds if not thousands. Some feature a single genre, but most offer the full literary spectrum: fiction, poetry, essays, short memoirs, book reviews, interviews, even short-form comics/graphic novellas. Not only have individual writers been launched in little magazines but entire literary movements. Though their circulations are tiny (averaging about 1,500) their readership is highly influential: agents, editors, academics, and other writers. You’ll never get rich writing for little magazines (most pay in copies, subscriptions, or perhaps $100) but they remain a vital venue. Here are some upcoming deadlines:

One of the premier journals for creative nonfiction, Fourth Genre, is holding its annual Michael Steinberg Essay Prize. The word limit is 6,000 and the deadline is prontito: February 28. Send a check for $15 along with your submission. The winning essayist will win 1,000 bucks.

Interview with Marcy Gordon

This week’s Best Women’s Travel Writing 2010 contributor is a Northern Californian who loves to eat, drink, and travel: Marcy Gordon. An editor for the Authentic Italy guidebook series, she is currently writing a memoir called Come for the Wine, Stay for The Surgery: Food, Wine and Misfortune in Italy. Visit her blog at http://comeforthewine.com.

What is ‘home’ for you? Is it a particular place or person or thing?

Home is anywhere my dogs are. The minute I am around my animals I am deeply settled. The presence of my dogs makes me feel complete and at ease. I wish I could travel with them everywhere.

When did you first hit the road? How did it go?

I first traveled solo when I was nine to visit relatives in New York City. I remember that trip very well. It felt so freeing to be on my own in the airport. I felt giddy with the sense of possibilities. I remember thinking maybe I could just sneak on to some other flight. I had this whole stowaway fantasy and was aching to have some crazy adventure on my own. My first trip to Europe was with my parents when I was twelve.

Deadlines for Lifelines: Sanctuaries

Friends, it is time you considered doing a residency. Beautiful people around the world open their estates to artists like you, so that you can create in peace. All provide lodging and many serve nightly, home-cooked, communal meals. Some pay their artists weekly stipends of $100 or more; others charge $15 to $50 a day (although scholarships are generally available). Still others are completely free (albeit highly competitive). Some writers (myself included) write whole books by hopping from one artist colony to the next. This is known as being a “colony whore,” and is something worth aspiring for. (Check out this interview for more details.)

One especially fabulous residency is currently seeking applications: the Kimmel Harding Nelson for the Arts of Nebraska City, Nebraska, a small town on the bank of the Missouri River. Writers are offered a cozy den with miles of shelf space; visual artists have studios measuring up to 425 square feet; and composers have access to a Yamaha upright piano, two Dynaudio Acoustics BM5A monitors, and a Mackie 4-channel  compact mixer. All are housed in a sweet brick dwelling designed by prairie architect Burkett Graf. Up to five artists are invited at a time for residencies ranging from two to eight weeks.

Interview with Beebe Bahrami

This week’s Best Women’s Travel Writing 2010 contributor is a writer and anthropologist who has intimately explored the cultures, languages, peoples, and histories of the western Mediterranean world:Beebe Bahrami. The author of The Spiritual Traveler: Spain – A Guide to Sacred Sites and Pilgrim Routes, she has also written for the Michelin Green Guides, National Geographic books, and Archaeology magazine. Visit her website at www.beebesfeast.com.

What is “home” for you? Is it a particular place or person or thing?

I aspire to create my feeling of “home” every day, in the place I currently am, with the people I befriend, and through the meals I cook.  (I also like to have a bouquet of fresh flowers on my table, ever since I saw Laura do that with daffodils in Doctor Zhivago.)

My sense of home is always weaving all my travels into it: it is taking ideas of how to live from different cultures and aspiring to integrate the most uplifting practices and the most earth sustaining ones as well.

Aim High

Not long ago, Laura Contreras-Rowe was invited to give a motivational speech to a pack of female high school basketball players in East Los Angeles. At one point, she asked the young women to name their Latina role model. To her astonishment, the room grew quiet. After recovering, she decided to use their silence as a muse. She spent much of 2009 traipsing around the United States, interviewing 33 Latinas pushing the boundaries of possibility, and just published their stories in Aim High: Extraordinary Stories of Hispanic & Latina Women. A smattering include celebrity chef Laura Diaz (“Chef Lala”), comedian Anjelah Johnson, drag racer Erica Ann Ortiz, IndyCar driver Milka Duno, news anchor Rebecca Gomez Diamond, and yours truly! I just received my copy, and it’s absolutely gorgeous, gracias to the cover art by my Tejana hermana, artist Laura Lopez Cano. Rowe is currently criss-crossing the nation, sharing the book with at-risk students at schools, group homes, and juvenile detention centers. Buy your copy now!

Interview with A. Kendra Greene

This week’s featured Best Women’s Travel Writing 2010 contributor has vaccinated wild boars in Chilean zoos, confirmed that a certain Turkish wonder of the world is now just a single pillar in a swamp of turtles, and occasionally felt like a rock star while teaching English in Korea: A. Kendra Greene. Although she misses the citrus of her native California, she is happy to be studying nonfiction, letterpress printing her own chapbooks, and recording the occasional radio essay at the University of Iowa, where she is a MFA candidate.

What is “home” for you? Is it a particular place or person or thing?

Well, what I’ve come to respect most about where I’m from is the napkins. The U.S. lags inexplicably in yogurt, swank taxicabs, and parade-inducing national holidays, but, both cloth and paper, we have the softest and most extravagantly abundant napkins going.