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Finding Italy…and Paris
It’s been a long time since I’ve been to Italy. I’ve never been to Paris. The closest I came to speaking French in another country was a visit to Quebec when I was in 7th grade. I began taking French classes that year—in 7th grade. Later, in high school, Mademoiselle Hammerstrom had our class read Les Misérables in French. In college, I took French classes as well. Last week, my husband and I started watching Stanley Tucci’s program Searching for Italy. My passport is updated and I’m ready to go. When it’s safe to travel again, I need to go to both of these countries. I make my father-in-law laugh…
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What Are You Missing Most Right Now?
Here’s the question: WHAT ARE YOU MISSING MOST RIGHT NOW? Most of us are probably missing the freedom we used to have to travel, being with those we love without social distancing, and seeing the world. Plus, as I am working on my syllabus for feature writing, I typically instruct and assign an article about travel writing. This morning I woke up realizing I may have to take this assignment out. How can I expect the students to travel and write about their local travel in these present circumstances? This semester is going to be unusual enough without now having to rethink assignments. I’m going to have to get creative.…
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Let Us Take You to St. Michaels – the setting of my new novel, LITTLE MILESTONES, with a video tour
CHECK OUT THIS VIDEO One of the things I had on my “to do list” with Little Milestones, is to take you on a guided tour of the places and settings that inspired the writing of my novel, Little Milestones. I was patiently waiting for the perfect Saturday to go and shoot the footage, and that day came with blue skies, fall foliage, and a friend by my side to make it fun. Little Milestones is available on Amazon.com and BN.com. It’s a story of moving on, love, friendship, family, and forgiveness. It’s a light novel that takes you from Labor Day weekend through Christmas, and it’s set in this gorgeous…
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Twilight and Twinkles and Travel
* As I tell my students in the special topics in travel writing course I teach, travel happens as soon as you step outside your door. Day trips, afternoon trips, and evening trips can all be wonderful experiences, especially when you’re sharing the time with someone you love. It can also be great to go exploring by yourself. In our local travel writing class, students often pick Annapolis as their spot. I love to read about my hometown from their perspective, some of them only visiting Annapolis for their first or second time. As I’ve grown up in this area and have spent lots of time cavorting and entertaining in…
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My Travel Writing Class and Their Work: Feeling Like a Proud Momma
* Wow. It’s hard to believe we have come to the end of another semester. My group of writers in our travel writing class published their stories today on our WordPress site called MORE THAN MARYLAND that I set up as a place to house of all of my All-Star Travelers who have taken the course at Stevenson University. As the students made some of their final presentations in class, a lot was discussed, such as what they learned from taking a travel writing course, which pieces from renowned travel writers were their favorites, how this course has helped them see travel differently, and what they will take with them…
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A Tear Worth Shedding and Other Things
I thought I’d start this Monday with a little recap of a whole bunch of things I’ve been doing over the last week. Let’s begin with a book recommendation. The Next Person You Meet in Heaven Some people are remarkably gifted storytellers. I finished a book at midnight last night by one such gifted storyteller: Mitch Albom. The Next Person You Meet In Heaven resonated so deeply with me that I shed many tears throughout the book. So many “themes” he touches upon in the novel are relatable. This book picks up many years later after Eddie’s death in The Five People You Meet In Heaven with Annie, the little…
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My Experience of Teaching a Travel Writing Course
I’ve been pretty fortunate to have the opportunity to teach a course called Special Topics in Travel Writing at Stevenson University, where I am a full-time professor. It’s one of my favorite courses to teach, and for years in another course I teach called Feature Writing, we cover travel writing as part of the curriculum. To be able to teach travel writing as a semester-long, intensive 400-level course is something I treasure. The students in my class are required to each pick a location relatively local to our region. Some explore cities or towns in Maryland, some in Pennsylvania, New York, Delaware, Washington, D.C. or any other destination that they…
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To Write, You Must Fall In Love … With Words
The words in the heart above were made with love. And love was one of the favorite words selected as their favorite by some of my friends. When I put a call out on Facebook for people to tell me what their favorite word was, I received 67 responses. Not too bad for a quick poll as summer began to wind down. As I promised my Facebook friends who participated, their words made it into this blog post which I will share with my students next week. Some words are more powerful than others; words help us truly define things we want to express or clarify; and when stringing words…
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Travel Blog: Santa Barbara & Los Angeles
As we packed the car in the morning to make our way to Santa Barbara, we bought breakfast sandwiches from the Inn at Spanish Bay. It was my brilliant idea to take the sandwiches to go so that we could have some time in Santa Barbara, as it was our quickest stop overnight. The ride was four hours, and I wanted to at least see the town before we had to move on to Los Angeles the next morning. We picked a spot along the 17-mile drive and decided to eat our sandwiches at a picnic table overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Much to our surprise (and disappointment), a seagull swooped…
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Travel Blog: Day 2-4 | San Fran, Carmel & Pebble Beach
Days 2-4: San Francisco, Carmel, Pebble Beach On the second day in San Francisco, I clocked in over 16,000 steps on my tracker. We walked everywhere. We began by having breakfast at Farmer Brown, a nice homestyle-meets-jazzy-blues place, where we all devoured some eggs, pancakes, and waffles. Afterwards, we lined up at the trolley, and the line was pretty long. We waited over an hour to take the trolley, but we were standing next to a family from Los Angeles who was also celebrating their daughter’s graduation from high school, and we became fast friends. One of the things I love most about travel is talking to people and meeting…
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They Say That Travel Changes You
They say that travel changes you. This is known to be true. For every time you take a step, No matter how many or few– The perspective that you used to have Is replaced with something new. —stephanie verni—
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Eating My East Coast Snobbery and That One Sentence
If you ask my husband, he’ll tell you I’m horrible at admitting when I’m wrong, so I figured I’d practice eating my words today with the hope that I may become better at acknowledging when I am incorrect. Over and over again throughout my years, I have uttered this singular sentence: I am an East Coast girl. It has been a conscious decision to say these words. And I said them with pride and an air of snobbery. Now—here it comes, so get ready—because I have to eat my words. Every ounce of arrogance that is linked to that one sentence is false. It’s a lie, an error in judgment.…
