The Anthropology of Travel Writing

by Jerry Camarillo Dunn, Jr.

To discourage lions, the mud huts of the Masai were surrounded by a fence of thorns. As our little safari of Americans and Europeans approached, the village headman padded out to greet us. His bare feet slapped the ground, his soles as furrowed as the African earth.

The headman held up two fingers, like Winston Churchill's "victory" sign. Was this a universal signal of political leadership? A tribal gesture of welcome?

"Two dollars American!" said the chief. "Each person."

Aha! It was the universal sign of tourism. Apparently, we weren't the first foreigners to happen upon the village. Inside the fence, tall Masai women lined up at elegant attention, each face framed by beaded earrings and necklaces for sale. Warriors held out their spears: "Good price!" Because we were far from Kenya's tourist centers, I was surprised to find this very modern situation: native people living their lives, yet charging admission.

In the village I gained some perspective from another visitor, Valene Smith, a vacationing California anthropologist who studies the effects that tourists have on the cultures they visit. She said her field was "the anthropology of tourism"—a phrase that forever altered my way of seeing things. Adopting the attitude of a field researcher, I observed a traditional people poised at a crossroads, the place where pastoral African life meets western commercialism. A few head-on collisions were inevitable. As a travel writer, how could I ease the impact? I also had new questions about myself and my fellow tourists. Why did we want to return to Ohio or New York City dressed up like Masai warriors and trying to carry spears through airport customs?

Looking at the world through the eyes of an anthropologist brought me a new viewpoint -- ideas I would use when I wrote a cover story about my travels in Africa for National Geographic Traveler magazine.

Jerry Camarillo Dunn, Jr. recently received the 2011 Gold Award for Best Travel Column from the Society of American Travel Writers, the nation's most prestigious association of travel journalists, photographers, and editors. The competition was organized by the society's western chapter.

The contest judge, Travel Editor Emeritus for Gannett Newspapers, said: "This is my idea of what a travel column can be at its best. 'The Curious Traveler' is a captivating mix of knowledge and information with a personal, conversational voice. The writer seems to know his topics like the back of his hand . . . "

Jerry's latest book is My Favorite Place On Earth (published by the National Geographic Society). It features 75 celebrated people -- ranging from the Dalai Lama to Natalie Portman -- talking about the places they love most. For more info, a complete list of names and places, and an excerpt from SBWC legend Ray Bradbury: www.myfavoriteplacenatgeo.com

From Bad to Worse

by Cork Milner, Creative Nonfiction Workshop Leader. Don’t be misled by the work of great authors. You don’t have to be a fine literary author to be a selling writer. You see, literary writers labor for immortality; selling writers don’t have the time.  Here’s a few lines of scrambled syntax in a novel by mega-seller Nora Roberts:  “Her breath came in pants.”

Also in the same best-selling bodice ripper is this slice of purple prose: “His mouth all but savaged hers ripping down her gut with one jagged and panicked thrill.”

John Grishom is not impervious to fractured syntax. In his novel, The Testament he writes: “Breakfast was a quick roll with butter on the deck.”

Then there is this: “Suddenly the door opened slowly.”

And this: “Ed panicked and turned when he heard a low, menacing voice coming from his rear.”

A Tennessee newspaper carried this hot news item: “Relatives of 87-year old Clara Bell Web said today she continued to operate the tiny downtown grocery store where she was killed Saturday, more or less to have something to do.”

A Family Reunion

by Matt Pallamary – Phantastic Fiction workshop leader

I attended my first Santa Barbara Writer’s Conference back in nineteen-eighty-eight and after a rocky start, became immersed in a family that quickly made me one of their own.  I don’t think my personality had anything to do with the kindness that I received.  I think it was the fact that I was a dedicated and obsessed writer – just like my brothers and sisters of the Santa Barbara Writer’s Conference who adopted me.

(Editors note: click on the photos below to see them full size with identifications.)

Back then the SBWC was held at the now legendary Miramar Hotel.  I went up as a nobody, and on one of my first mornings there I had the joy and honor of having breakfast with Charles “Sparky” Schulz and his charming wife Jeannie.  What struck me back then on that magical day, was that here I was having breakfast with one of the greatest if not THE greatest comic strip artists of all time who I had followed all of my life, and we spent two or three hours talking about ME!  Here was Sparky with all of his accomplishments and he was most interested in me!  He was not only interested, but encouraging and supportive and I was completely blown away.

I went to Shelley Lowenkopf’s infamous pirate workshops and met and connected with Sparky’s son Monte, who now owns the conference, as well as Catherine Ryan Hyde, Jane St. Clair, and a number of other dedicated writers.  This is where I started to get into trouble because, I went to the pirates and did all the other day workshops as well as listen to all the keynoters, so by mid-week I was a physical and emotional wreck.  On top of that I got turned down by a seemingly promising agent, and I was a basket case for the rest of the week.

First hard lesson learned – pace your self!

By the end of the conference San Diego based workshop leader Joan Oppenheimer, took me under her wing and invited me to join her writing group.  I met John Ritter and a few other cool writers that first week at SBWC and he and they were already members of Joan’s group, so I joined her weekly workshops and got my skills sharpened.

I did not intend to go to the SBWC my second year because I could not afford it, but Joan and a great friend Lynne Ford sponsored me because they said that they believed in me.  In my second year Sid Stebel took me under his wing and mentored me and his mentorship soon turned into friendship.  When my first published work, The Small Dark Room of the Soul came out, Sid in his generous and supportive spirit went to bat for me and asked Ray Bradbury for a blurb for my book.  Ray came through, adding to my list of wonderful friends and mentors.  What an honor to be with these folks.  I also connected with Abe Polsky, who mentored me and has become a great and supportive friend, and I connected with Laura Taylor in Phyllis Gebauer’s workshop, starting an enduring friendship.

I was a regular in Shelley Lowenkopf’s pirate workshop with Monte and Catherine and read an opening to a horror novel one night and watched Shelley out of the corner of my eye scribbling away.  I thought it was going pretty good, but I felt a bit apprehensive until Shelley stopped me, stood up and read off all the adverbs I had used.

Second hard lesson learned – kill them adverbs!

To top off that magical year, which I had not planned on, I won a fiction award for a short horror story I had written.

There was not much for horror, fantasy and science fiction people back in those days, so a couple of Science fiction/ Fantasy writers asked me to lead an unofficial workshop that was sanctioned by the conference and to our delight it was a hit.

When then directors Paul Lazarus, Mary, and Barnaby Conrad heard it was well attended they asked me if I would lead one officially the next year and I was ecstatic.  Mother Superior, Mary Conrad welcomed and treated me with the best love and attention anyone could ever ask for and I indeed felt like family.

Chuck Champlin, the class act that he is, had his own workshop back then.  After teaching his, he came and checked out my workshop and we became fast friends.  I miss the time I spent talking with him about film, literature and all things literary.

I know I was the youngest workshop leader for something like fifteen years.  It’s been twenty three years now and I am graying so I have no doubt that I have lost my youngest status,  but something else wonderful happened as a result of this.  My mentors who I looked up to, respected, and admired had suddenly become my colleagues.  What great company to be in.  This was my writing family who made me one of their own.

I know I have helped the conference, especially Barnaby Conrad because he would get manuscripts in and see them as weird and say, “This is weird, give it to Matt Pallamary, he’s the weirdo.” -- And I rose to the occasion.

My workshop has been going on for over twenty years now and I have a number of regulars who add to its energy and success.  My longest standing attendee is Lorelei Armstrong, who I call my “Princess of Darkness”.  I don’t think Lorelei has missed any of my workshops and I can count on her to zero in – in fact, more often than not, I have my critique made up in my mind, then Lorelei opens her mouth and my critique comes out!

I am happy that Monte, who goes back to the roots of the conference, has brought it back to life and I am very much looking forward to the family reunion that is coming this June.

WWW.MATTPALLAMARY.COM

At the Heart of Story Is Craft

by Dale Griffiths Stamos

To be a writer, like any other kind of artist, is to be addicted to your art.  It is also to be a soul excavator,  to be a little crazy, to stare the odds in the face and persist anyway, but more than anything, it’s to put in the work.  The hard, steady, often inspired, but also intensely thought-out process of crafting a piece of fiction (or non fiction) from beginning to end.

I use the word “craft” purposefully.  Good writing, to be most effective, does not just come from interesting characters, strong dialogue, or vivid descriptions, no matter how well expressed.  Those elements, as important as they are, must be placed within a dramatic story structure driven by powerful internal and external forces of desire and opposition that drive the story to an inevitable conclusion.  Making all of this come together in just the right way is not easy, but it is your job as a writer to make it look easy.  Or rather, to so absorb your reader (or your audience) in the story, that all the structure and technique you used to tell your tale will fall away like so much invisible scaffolding.  But make no mistake, without that scaffolding, you have no story.

In our class on Story Structure, we cut to the heart of story, your story.  We help you find the elements of story that already exist in your work, discover those that don’t, and strengthen and clarify these elements to make your work a compelling read.

Keep in mind that craft is not a dry intellectual process.  It is an evolving transliteration of ideas, emotions, and deep-felt truths into powerful dramatic form.  It is the use of story technique, which has been around since the beginning of time, to touch the universal in all of us.

A Place for Poetry

by Perie Longo

A seventh grade student of mine once wrote:

If all writing is a picnic basket then poetry is the chocolate cake.

How delicious to be returning to SBWC after a two year hiatus, looking forward to a delicious feast of seeing old friends and meeting new ones. Just now, lines spring up from a poem by Linda Pastan titled “A New Poet.”

Finding a new poet is like finding a new wildflower out in the woods.

its leaves grow in splayed rows down the whole length of the page. In fact the very page smells of spilled

red wine and the mustiness of the sea on a foggy day—the odor of truth and of lying.

That’s an interesting last stanza, considering Santa Barbara’s June gloom and the sea at our feet. Good writing weather, for sure. We do a share of that in my workshop, but our main focus is on taming the poems you bring, getting them ready for publication. And about “truth and lying”, read Richard Hugo’s The Triggering Town. He says if you’re writing about your blue house and it works better for the poem to make it yellow, make it yellow! Memory is fuzzy at best and poetry is more about what we see on reflection than accuracy of fact.

On the subject of editing, I heard Linda Pastan give a reading in Washington DC some years ago and she said she edited her poems thirty-nine times, and Ted Kooser said he edited his fifty! Often poets think suggestions for editing means their poems aren’t any good. Nothing could be further from the truth. Back to the chocolate cake metaphor, editing is a way to look at the ingredients and turn the poem into a seamless moment that slips easily onto the tongue to end not with a whimper, but a bang, or a deep sigh! It’s not about the number of times we edit (i.e. commas in, commas out or this word for that word), but being open to seeing what is there, and making more of it.

Please bring ten copies to share. A poem is a visual experience, as well as auditory, and the look of a poem on the page is as important as the structure, language, rhythm, and imagery, to name a few things that are helpful to talk about. Discussion of our poems, and poems of other poets, provides fodder for dialogue about the many aspects of poetry. I’ve always found the wide range of experience of those who attend the workshop provides a great learning experience for all of us. When we become more aware of how to read a poem, to look at how a poet arrives at what we call a “good” poem, we become more astute at editing our own and improving our craft. Often I’m asked, “What makes a good poem?” Or with free verse, “What makes it a poem if it doesn’t rhyme?” Difficult questions not easy to answer, but ones we like to mull. There are probably as many different opinions about that as there are poets and types of poems, which leads to other comments I often hear. “I don’t understand poetry,” and “Why would anyone write poetry if it doesn’t make any money?” To that question I might reply, “Because it makes me happy.” Poetry is a natural expression that links us to each other, heart to heart, in many profound ways, and helps us understand what it is to be human. Poetry exists in all genres of writing. Focusing on fresh language and voice is the domain of all who take pen to paper or finger to computer. We live for words. As Pablo Neruda wrote in his Memoirs:

I love words so much…The unexpected ones…The ones I wait for greedily or stalk until, suddenly, they drop… Vowels I love…They glitter like colored stones, they leap like silver fish, they are foam, thread, metal, dew…I run after certain words…They are so beautiful that I want to fit them all into my poem…I catch them in mid- flight, as they buzz past, I trap them, clean them, peel them, I set myself in front of the dish, they have a crystalline texture to me, vibrant, ivory, vegetable, oily, like fruit, like algae, like agates, like olives…And then I stir them, I shake them, I drink them, I gulp them down, I mash them, I garnish them, I let them go…

Happy writing, and see you soon at the Mar Monte!

Song, Story, and Orwell

by Rebecca Robins

This week I was reading a review of a book discussing protest songs, and as the reviewer, Sean Wilentz, tried to explain why one song soared while another failed, I was struck by how the same sort of distinctions apply to memoir. Why one soars and why another doesn’t.

The difference? The songs that worked were the ones that came from those who spoke directly from the experience of their soul. The ones that didn’t? They spoke from somewhere outside themselves.

Sometimes the most difficult thing is to know what you really want to say, not what you think you should have thought or said, but just flat out, the truth of your experience, how you faced it, what you did, how you changed, or didn’t.

George Orwell is one of our best non-fiction writers. Some of his most effective writing came out of his time working in India and Burma where he found himself involved in situations in which the powerless were treated in cruel and unjust ways. Many of his essays of this time were his protest songs.

His technique is worth studying if you are serious about working in non-fiction or memoir in particular. He used himself: his sense of history, his narrative commentary, and his reflections to tell the truth of how an intelligent civilized compassionate man, in this instance Orwell, confesses to being reduced to an angry embittered soul. In this way he became the narrator whose very presence in the story was the indictment. I was there.

At his best, Orwell’s narrating self knows that his obligation is to use himself, as it should be yours, to make clear what he felt and did and how he changed. If he loses track of who he is, if he falls back on rationalizations and old assumptions and stops looking clearly and honestly at each situation he finds himself in, he will no longer be writing from his soul. The story will stop telling his truth. It will no longer soar .

In the same way, it will be your experience, your perspective and your personality, along with the discipline to keep it fully present on the page, that will lead you to the truth of your story.

Dare to Be Personal

by Catherine Ann Jones

When television producer, Martha Williamson, asked me to write for her hit series, Touched by an Angel, I said I preferred to make up my original stories. So she asked me to make up a few and pitch them to her. She told me that if she did not like any of my stories, she would give me a story to write. I pitched nine original stories, and the one she chose for me to write first was the only one of the nine that was inspired by an incident from my own life. I was psychic as a child and would often tune out and listen to inner music, so my teacher thought I might be hard of hearing. This diagnosis began a series of doctors and examinations to find out what was wrong with me. Of course, nothing was wrong. I was simply creatively entering into my own world. So this was the starting point for what became the episode, A Joyful Noise. It is about a little girl who hears angels singing and is sent to a psychiatrist to rid her of her voices. In the end, it is the psychiatrist who is changed by the little girl and her angels. Olympia Dukakis plays an archangel in this episode. This was one of Oprah’s favorites -- she once screened a clip on her weekly television show. So, the moral is: dare to be personal.

What is the emotional personal thread from your own life which can be woven into your story? Answer this, and you will have the key to meaning for yourself as the writer as well as for the audience, who will identify with your feeling. It is no coincidence that the greatest novels and plays are often inspired by the author’s own family background. Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day Journey into Night, Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie, Boris Pasternak’s Dr. Zhivago, or Thomas Wolfe’s Look Homeward Angel are all examples of this form of inspiration. Consider fiction no more than disguised autobiography. It need not be literally autobiographical, of course, just emotional autobiographical.

Subjectivity is necessary for all great art. Story is no exception. I will go on record and say that subjective point of view from the writer as well as the subjective response of reader or audience is the most important aspect of any book or movie. This is why sometimes our favorite movies or books are not classics, but simply something we strongly identify with. They hit a nerve. A disaster film depicting a great love story, Titanic became the best selling movie of all time (before James Cameron went animation on us). One of my favorites is Anne of Green Gables about a little girl with too much imagination. Ask yourself what is your favorite book or movie, the one you like to return to, and it may surprise you that it may not be a great classic, but simply the book or movie you love. Craft without art: it works but who cares? The audience must care. Caring sells tickets. We care by identifying with the main character, something within must emotionally connect to our own life.

Once again, dare to be personal.

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Catherine Ann Jones has played major roles in over fifty productions on and off-Broadway, as well as television (Great Performances, etc.) and film. Disappointed by the lack of good roles for women, she wrote a play about Virginia Woolf (On the Edge) which won a National Endowment for the Arts Award. Ten of her plays, including Calamity Jane (both play and musical) and The Women of Cedar Creek, have won several awards and are produced both in and out of New York. Her films include The Christmas Wife (Jason Robards & Julie Harris), Unlikely Angel (Dolly Parton), Angel Passing (Hume Cronyn & Teresa Wright) which played at Sundance and went on to garner fifteen awards here and abroad, and also the popular TV series, Touched by an Angel.  A Fulbright Scholar to India, she has taught writing at The New School University, University of Southern California, Pacifica Graduate Institute, and the Esalen and Omega Institutes. Ms. Jones is often invited as a keynote speaker to various conferences as Women, Wealth, & Wisdom Conference at UCLA. Ms. Jones lives in Ojai, California, leads The Way of Story and Heal Yourself with Writing workshops throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. Her book The Way of Story: the craft & soul of writing is used by many schools, including NYU writing programs. For her workshop schedule, online courses, blog, and story/script consultant service please visit www.wayofstory.com.