Travel « A Writer Afoot

Journeying inward

I’ve crept out out of the hotel room, leaving behind my sleeping roommates, and am writing this from the lobby of the Hobart Quest Hotel. Last night, we sought out the Lark Distillery, where we sampled the local specialties, some whiskey for the others and a taste of the pepperberry (?) liquor, which one [...]

Red boat

Back from the hike, and I think I might finally have figured out how to upload photos, though not how to edit the size. So here is one I took last evening:

Most of the photos are still on my camera, but I’ll be adding them to Flickr as we go.

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Kangaroos and roast pumpkin pizza!

Writing from a clean and ordinary internet cafe two stops down from a backpacker cafe not far from the Flint Street station in Melbourne. Haven’t had a chance to upload any of my own photos, but this one was taken last night from the Soul Mama Cafe on the bay in St Kilda–Mel, Freya, [...]

Cherry chocolate and vegemite

In the moment, I am sitting in the business center of the Langham Hotel in Melbourne. Out in the lobby, someone is playing gliding piano music, and I can faintly hear the rush of the many fountains that divide the marble staircases. Very elegant place, and very down to earth.

Two little food reports. [...]

Where expectation is still pure

Two days to go before I leave for Australia. What are my goals? What are my expectations?

Goals: To take great photos. To look for those excellent, beautiful, telling things that will illuminate the experience for me, and for you.

To be like a sponge, wide open and without judgment, and absorb absolutely everything [...]

Stranded

This, too, is travel:

I’m eating the chocolate cookie they gave me when I checked in at the business man’s special, a Holiday Inn or Ramada, one of those. Not far from the airport, where I was stranded all afternoon. Some plane didn’t make it for hours and hours, and it stranded lots of [...]

Santa Barbara Harbor and the girls in the basement

For the past three days, as I showered, or chatted with a student or another writer, or walked from one hotel to the other, the girls in the basement have kept up a little series of nudges. “Now? Can we come out and talk now?”

Teaching, however, takes a lot of heart energy, mind [...]

California dreamin'…tidbits

Celebrity sighting today: John McCain, no more than 20 feet from the room where we were about to begin our memoir class. He is very small. I’m not sure why that surprised me so much, but it did.

For those looking for the voice worksheet, find it here: http://my.sbwriters.com/profile/BarbaraSamuel

I’m blogging tomorrow (Wednesday) at [...]

More things I like about California

A mellow day, the calm before the fierceness of teaching and talking to come. I walked down to the faculty meeting and then caught a ride back with the wonderful Mary Hershey , who is teaching humor at this conference. I worked for awhile on class materials, making sure everything is in shape for [...]

Extravagant California

I landed in Santa Barbara this afternoon. I’m here for the Santa Barbara Writers Conference, but this year decided to stay somewhere outside the hermetically perfect conference hotel. I’m about a mile up the beach, just right. My room overlooks the pool. This afternoon, I set out on foot in the deep heat (93 degrees, [...]

A Writer Afoot

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