Travel Talk

I can't believe how long its been since I last posted. It's been so long that the whole blog system I'm on had completely updated. I was still on the old. So now I'm up to date again! I'm teaching a class at the Loft this spring. Here's the information:

http://loft.org/ (The Loft Literary Center, Minneapolis, MN)

Instructor: Deborah McLaren
Class: M49-2, 6 Week Class, Winter/Spring 2007
Date(s): Tuesdays, March 13 – April 17
Time(s): 9:30 – 11:30 am
Location: Open Book

Learn what it takes to be an alternative travel writer, from pre-trip research and note taking to selective observation. Discuss story ideas; create structure for your story; and turn recollections into a draft travel piece. Be prepared to write in class: choose a past trip or a familiar travel destination for your topic; bring notes, travel guidebooks, photos, postcards, journals, promotion material, clippings, and any other source materials. Be prepared to discuss ethics in travel writing as well as various forms of “alternative travel,” such as ecotourism, voluntourism, cross-cultural exchanges, off the beaten path. The class is fast paced: lots of reporting, writing, rewriting, and firsthand experience, and then writing about it. Each student can expect to produce at least one draft by the course’s end.
The following scholarships are available for this course: Full, Partial

Instructor:
Deborah McLaren has more than fifteen years of experience writing about alternative travel. Her book Rethinking Tourism and Ecotravel (Kumarian Press, 2nd ed. 2004) is a best-seller in its genre. Deborah is a contributing writer and editor of Transitions Abroad magazine. In addition to writing, Deborah has worked in community tourism development with Indigenous peoples from the Amazon to the Arctic, and as a consultant to UN programs in Bhutan and northern India. She has just completed a series of articles about community recovery after the 2004 tsunami in southern India.