Victorian towns with a touch of the Old West swaggering out the saloon doors.
Stickball in a 19th century Native American village. Discovering over 500 varieties of soda. A wildlife refuge where Teddy Roosevelt once hunted with Comanche war chief Quanah Parker. Celebrating a centennial. Oil barons and their riches. Experiencing the sights and smells of [...]
About four years ago, in a fit of naivety and suffering from a serious case of itchy feet…
…I jacked in my steady career job in PR, bought an entry level D-SLR camera and booked a ticket to South America. I had it all worked out; I was going to become a travel writer.
I was old [...]
Rare are my opportunities these days to just sit and read a good book.
But when I do have time, you’ll generally find me with my nose buried in something that will help me improve my technical or writing skills, or learn something new about online marketing or promotion, or to stay current with what’s going [...]
Rejection is a natural part of being a writer.
Even those writers and authors who have gone on to achieve international success were, at one point or another, rejected.
One of the differences between those who go on to be successful and those who don’t is the willingness to learn from the experience and try again.
It’s [...]
As a follow up to her earlier Guest Article….
… Writing The Perfect Lodging Review, well-known professional travel writer and Uptake Lodging Editor Nancy D. Brown takes a break from her perpetual traveling to share with us more of her sage advice on writing.
Here are her tips on writing that perfect destination review:
Set the Hook – [...]
Have you ever wanted to transform your travel journal entries into compelling narratives or travel essays?
Do you dream about publishing your work as a travel writer?
As you already know, there are many different styles and genres of travel writing.
One of the most common forms of travel writing today is travel blogging. I started [...]
Welcome to another installment of Ask The Editor!
Today I cull once again through the copious questions from my email inbox, and pull another one that I hear frequently enough that it belongs in an FAQ somewhere:
Q. Why do my article pitches and guest posting efforts get rejected? Sometimes I don’t even get [...]
In an earlier post on this site, I wrote about the differences in self-publishing via traditional print and Print On Demand (POD).
My latest book, Time Zones, Containers and Three Square Meals a Day, was published via POD, which was a new experience for me.
Print On Demand is a digital way of getting your book [...]
I am a traveler, and like many people on this site, I write about it.
That is to say, I don’t blog about my trips, but instead have written a book, Time Zones, Containers and Three Square Meals a Day, about a few particular journeys I made while working on a container ship.
Now that my [...]
The typical freelance writing process involves coming up with an idea and then querying a magazine, ezine or other publication for a one-time working relationship.
Sometimes, as you get to know an editor, you establish a rapport that leads to multiple writing assignments.
As a freelancer, those are the gigs I like best – the [...]
Years ago, I was on a press trip in Africa.
As we were bumping along through the savannah, one of my fellow journalists was flipping through a stack of magazines he had brought along for what I guess he considered dull moments.
He could have been on a plane, he could have been in [...]
The first time I went to Greece was in 1997.
I had decided to see a bit of Europe after spending some months on the island of Ibiza.
As things were, I had picked up a German copy of Henry Miller’s “The Colossus of Maroussi” a book that I still keep albeit in a rather [...]
My name is Nancy Brown and I have a confession to make: I sleep around a lot.
Now don’t take that wrong. I’m a lodging editor.
I review two properties a week and I’m paid to sleep in other people’s beds.
While this may sound like an ideal job, the type of travel writing I [...]
One of the very first things I had to accept about the kind of travel writing I do is that it’s a service.
While I was inspired by the likes of Lawrence Durrell, Paul Theroux and Jan Morris, I was writing for a Condé Nast magazine.
Articles had to be short and to the point, [...]
Sometimes a story gets better the more it’s told.
This is especially true if you get paid for each telling.
When you write an article and sell it to multiple sources as a syndicated piece, you are seizing the opportunity to tell your story over and over to a larger audience of readers.
Travel pieces lend themselves [...]
