Jeff Meller
Travel Writer/Editor Interview
2 Oct 13
609 words
1. Why did you become a travel writer?
I majored
in English in college…. I wanted to be a writer, but realized that I had
nothing to write about. I thought that if I traveled it would give me something
to write about. So in 1975 after graduation I spent a year in France studying
French. I wrote about how to live in France cheaply and how to get beneath the
surface of a culture….
2. Are there experiences that help to become
a better travel writer?
My
first journalistic job was as a feature writer. It taught me to focus on a
place or a person about whom the feature was written. This focus has continued
to inform my travel writing…. Travel writing should be more about the
destination than about the writer.
3. Were there travel writers who set an
example which you strive to emulate?
Evelyn
Waugh, When the Going Was Good.
4. How has travel writing changed since 1975?
Has
become much more “how to:” where to stay, where to eat, best rates…. This seems
to be what most Americans want…. For the most part there is a lack of curiosity
or interest in the outside world…. A cruise is a vacation, not travel…. Only 25
percent of Americans have passports; this is a distortion on the high side because
passports often now are simply used for domestic identification.
5.
Why has travel writing changed?
The great travel writing in the 19th
century primarily was by the British…. They were writing for an audience which
never was going to see what the traveler was seeing…. It may be that with the
current availability, egalitarianism and corporatization of travel, there is a
race to mediocrity….
6. Although it might not be what serious
travel writers would like to produce, is the public getting from travel
journalism what in fact the public wants?
Probably.…
7. Do people from other cultures want
different things when they travel?
The
Germans are the best travelers. They are much better informed and do more
preparation before traveling…. They ascribe their interest in meaningful travel
to Goethe’s Italian Journey…. Recently the Poles are traveling more and
more thoughtfully.
8.
Is travel writing different in different countries?
Travel writing still holds an
important place in British publishing. It is not easy to tell whether this is
British publishing leading the interest or reacting to public demand.
9.
What is the status of travel writers in the journalistic
hierarchy?
Travel
writers have low status…. Their journalistic colleagues believe that when travel
writers are working they are on vacation…. Travel writers on assignment put in
very long days because they want to be up early and stay up late to see what
goes on in the locale they are visiting at the beginning and end of each day….
Also travel writers must know architecture, history, language, painting, nature
to paint a complete picture of their destination.…
10.
Where is travel writing going in the future?
It is difficult to know…. The
writing seems to be more analytic, in the style of Pico Iyer, than descriptive….
It is very hard to get published…. There are some decent online travel writing
websites, but they pay authors at most $25 per story…. The best travel stories
now appear not in travel magazines, but in literary or general-interest
magazines which carry a travel story…. Travel writing has gone through cycles
before; we may just be at the low point of another cycle.
-- 30 --
Sources:
Telephone
interview with Tom Swick, Sept. 24, 2013.
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