K. Lang-Slattery's Blog, page 5

Collecting Fabric as a Travel Souvenir

A Facebook friend, a lady who is a master quiltmaker, recently posted a T-shirt with the following slogan emblazoned across the front: “I sew, but my favorite hobby is collecting fabric.”

Though I have never met his lady in person, we seem to have a lot in common.  More than 50 years ago, I read somewhere (probably in one of the grocery store homemaker magazines I read), that fabric was always a good buy. The main take-away message emphasised that the cost of fabric was on the rise, would never go down, and stocking up on fabric would always be a cost saving ploy for anyone who liked to sew.

I took this message to heart and my husband, who loved to save money, supported my endeavors.  An “almost hippie” of the 60s and a world-traveler, I have always been attracted to ethnic fabrics or any cloth typical of an exotic culture. As a result, fabric and fabric items, have been regulars on my travel souvenir list. I have filled my suitcases with tablecloths, napkins, and even items of clothing, but mainly yardage. Later, when I sewed for my growing daughter and occasionally put together a quilt as a gift for a friend’s baby, I often purchased extra fabric for future use. These days, my fabric stash consists mainly of a collection for never started projects, matched only by the baskets of sewing patterns I keep nearby.

Luckily, I inherited my mother’s cedar chest. She prized it because her older brother made it for her as a “hope chest,” that traditional repository of linens and other items a young girl collected to take to her new home after marriage.  For years, the chest stood at the foot of my parent’s bed and my mother used it to store all her sewing supplies.  Filled with fabric, bags of notions like elastic and snaps, a carved wooden box that held the extra sewing machine parts, a round metal box filled with spools of thread and another filled with buttons, is seemed to me a kind of treasure chest.  From it came the party dresses my mother made for my sister and me. If I wanted to sew a doll dress, or (later) a ditty bag to take to camp, I was allowed to find the supplies I needed in the cedar chest.

Some years ago, the chest moved from my mother’s bedroom to mine. Now it is filled to the brim with fabric, a collection that overflows into an assortment of plastic tubs stacked on the top shelves of my closet.

My mother’s cedar chest is still a treasure box.  It is where I keep the most valuable fabrics—cloth that brings back memories of the places where it was purchased.  There are embroidered lengths from Central America, a few remaining scraps of tartan wool from Scotland, batik sarongs from Malaysia, silk saris from India, and a score of carefully folded bundles of various silk brocades from China.  I will probably never sew anything from these rich fabrics. I have reached a point in my life where I no longer have the patience for serious sewing.  But the colorful weaves and designs of the fabric I collected around the world is always there—ready for me to touch while I dream about our connected past and their future possibilities.

This blog is dedicated to Hattie Kate Agenbroad Howell of Toledo, Ohio.

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A Mother’s Memories of her Son’s Boot Camp Graduation

Some years ago, I took an emeritus class at U.C. Irvine in Travel Writing. There I learned that a travel essay needs to be more than a travelogue.  In order to interest a reader, travel writing should also have attitude. The writer’s voice is essential as it is through their eyes we view the adventure. I thought my blog readers might enjoy seeing some of the essays I wrote for that class.  This one, A Mother’s Memories of her Son’s Boot Camp Graduation, shows that not all travel articles have to take you to foreign places. Though written in 2002, I think it is still relevant for its glimpse of our military and the young men who join.

*    *    *    *    *    *    *

Fall of 2002.  The crowd is building.  We have come from Texas, North Dakota, Oregon, Idaho, Missouri, Wyoming and even California — in fact, every state west of the Mississippi.  A thin man in cowboy boots stands near me, his brown and callused hand resting on his wife’s waist.  She is short and round, her tight jeans pulled in with a silver studded belt. Between them is a stroller with a sleeping toddler and two, stair-stepped, sunburned boys.   A large Hispanic family, what must be cousins, aunts, parents and siblings, cluster together speaking Spanish.  A young girl, her hair in tight corn-rows, sports a t-shirt with a big red heart and the words, “I love my Marine.”

What am I doing here?  A Californian, born and breed, surrounded by the cream of the American Heartland.  A liberal democrat standing shoulder to shoulder with a man wearing a National Rifle Association cap.  A second-generation college graduate thrust among families who, I imagine, think of the military as the road to a better life. Yet there is a common thread that ties us all together.  We are waiting with anticipation for the first glimpse of the sons, brothers, and boyfriends we haven’t seen in thirteen weeks.  It is Family Day at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego.

I love my country for its beauty and its freedoms, but I also carry a vivid memory of the reprimand I got in my first year of teaching for wearing a black arm band to commemorate the fallen on both sides of the Viet Nam conflict. I am aware of a cold hard lump waiting to explode in the center of my chest — an uncomfortable lump of fear and disapproval that contrasts with a sense of eager anticipation to see my son and what he has become.

The amplified voice of a drill Sargent pulls the crowd into a patio ringed by Spanish arches.  He spews information and instructions about the day and involves some brave mothers in a contest to see who can best replicate the Marine Corps rallying cry. A variety of “Ooh-Rahs,” some high pitched, some low, at least one faltering, echo around the patio. Finally, it is time. “Be sure to get behind the sign with the correct platoon number of your loved one,” he warns.

Four deep, we jostle for a good picture taking spot. The platoons arrive, their red and gold flags waving in the sea blown breeze.  My daughter nudges me and whispers, “There he is. I recognize his elbows.”  This is helpful as they all look alike to me, each one slim and fit in olive drab t-shirt and running shorts.  Only complexion and height offer any clue. They dare not smile or shift their eyes to left or right; the DIs are watching and notice everything.

The young man we search for is a squad leader and thus in the front row. For just a moment, pride smothers the cold lump that clogs my throat. Slowly the recruits begin to move, jogging in place near the sign with their platoon number, while cameras click frantically. Then there is a loud “Ooh-Rah!” and they are off for a swift four-mile circuit of the base.

Following instructions from the amplified voice, we surge toward the theater where we are told the motivational run will end.  A holiday atmosphere is being pushed. There is a purveyor of soft drinks, water and candy. A tall Marine in a DI hat (the one that looks like what Smokey the Bear wears) leads Molly, an English bulldog dressed in a camouflage vest, around on her leash. Small children are allowed to pat her head. Some of us wander over to inspect the seven-foot high, wooden spirit displays standing on the theater steps.  There is one for each platoon — all painted with more enthusiasm than artistic talent. I plant my feet behind the barricade and hold the space near the correct number chalked on the pavement.

The sweating recruits return and a tall, white-haired commanding officer delivers a welcoming speech.  He is lean and fit enough to have run with this new class who are about to graduate from basic training. San Diego adds six-hundred young men almost every week all year round to the ranks of the United States Marines. The Parris Island Marine Depot in South Carolina trains both women and men and weekly graduates a similar number.

Later during the Emblem Ceremony, I feel the cold grenade in my chest stirring again.  It feels as if someone has pulled the pin.  The recruits march onto the Parade Ground in precise formation.  Hundreds of them stand in perfectly straight rows, dressed in pressed khaki and olive drab, their close-cropped heads topped with the small boat shaped hat called a barracks cover. In the aftermath of September 11, now almost a year past, each recruit is entitled to wear the red and yellow ribbon on his breast signifying active service in time of war. All lined up and pinned in red and yellow, not one of them is old enough to remember Viet Nam, or any other war. I fear that to these young men, war is a chapter in a history book. Or a computer game.

Drill sergeants, assisted by squad leaders, move down the straight rows and present each young man with the black metal Eagle, Globe and Anchor pin that propels him to the official rank of Marine.  Each new Marine proudly fastens the emblem to his own hat and returns to his place at attention.  When it is over, we pour out of the bleachers to hug our sons who stand stiff and proud, but finally smiling.  The very air vibrates with military zeal and patriotism and I allow my sense of impending danger to sink beneath the waves of pride.

There will be exactly six and a half hours of base liberty for the Marines.  It is the first real free time they have had since boot camp began three long months before.  Our son leads us around the public areas of the base  and explains that the barracks and training fields are off limits.  We pass groups of new recruits still in their early weeks of training. Our son points out that their pant legs hang loose over their boots.  It seems the blousing of camouflage pants into combat boots is a privilage that must be earned. Our son wants to talk of home and hear news of his friends. We want to ask about what he has experienced but we don’t know the right questions to get more than one-word answers.

In the end, we sit at a green plastic table in a patio surrounded by the PX and fast food stands. A Hallmark store  does a rousing business selling everything from mugs to stuffed animals, t-shirts to duffle bags, all advertising the Marine Corps.  When we order soft ice-cream cones, I smile to hear my handsome, uniformed son call the lady who takes the money “Ma’am.”

Too soon the time is over.  As good-byes begin in the orange glow of the setting California sun, I look around. The smooth faces of the new Marines show the confidence and assurance that marks them as men. There are no boys here, though their average age is only nineteen.  But the question lingers in the air — where will they be in six months?

This photo was taken of my son in Iraq, about a year after graduation.

Author’s note:   Within six months of his graduation, m y son was in Afghanistan as part of a six-man reconnaissance team.  After 3 deployments and 8 years in the USMC, he returned to civilian life, attended university, graduated at the top of his computer engineering class, and  settled in the Pacific Northwest. We count ourselves very lucky.

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A Lifelong Traveler Looks Back at her Passports

“I am a lifelong traveler, have visited every continent except Antarctica, and have not been without a valid passport since I was sixteen.” This quote, lifted from my Instagram bio, represents what I believed to be true until I began to write this post. . . . which says something about personal memory and the veracity of memoir.  But more on that another time.

I love my collection of passports – each represents a different stage in my life and a different group of travel memories.

I got my first passport two months before my seventeenth birthday.  My parents decided in early spring that the coming summer would be the perfect time for a family trip to Europe.  This necessitated a rush to secure passports for myself and my seven-year-old sister (my parents both had well worn passports already).  First a photo.

A typical teenager, I saw any photo shoot as an opportunity to make a personal statement.  I imagine I perspired under the camera lights in the hand-knit, ski sweater I chose for the occasion.   I loved that sweater because it had been made for me by my boyfriend’s mom.  In spite of the fact that the sweater was far too warm for a southern California May afternoon, I wore it a statement of loyalty to my guy.

Issued on June 10, 1960, my first passport took me all over Europe, from Spain to Yugoslavia, from France to Germany. After that summer, I was hooked on travel.

I started my adult life with my second passport.  I had just graduated from college and was on my way to graduate school in Mexico City.  In those years (this was 1966) a passport was needed to travel in Mexico below a certain latitude.   This passport has a stamp from the Mexican Consulate in San Diego and several entry and exit stamps. Though it isn’t as exciting as some of my others, this document reminds me of the joy of traveling and discovering without my parents.  Besides, it’s fun to see the photo of twenty-three-year-old me. It seems so long ago that I was so young?

On August 20, 1971, six days after my wedding, I was issued a new passport (my third) in my married name.  Two weeks later, Tom (my new husband) and I began our long international road trip.  This is the trip of my memoir, Wherever the Road Leads.   Passport number three holds so many visa stamps that two long, fold-out accordion pages were added to accommodate the red, green, blue and purple symbols of border crossings.  This document carried me on a two-year honeymoon and a later romantic trip to Asia.  In August of 1976, two months after my daughter was born, passport #3 expired.

I was surprised to see that my fourth passport wasn’t issued until the winter of 1981.   Four and a half years without a valid passport!  So contrary to my own understanding of myself as a traveler. But, those were my “Mommy” years.  For half a decade I was content with family camping trips around the west coast.

In 1981, with a chance to fly to Singapore to meet Tom and with my mother eager to care for Erin, I began my international traveling life again.  Besides Singapore, my fourth passport has stamps for Hong Kong in both ‘81 and ‘82 and for a family trip to New Zealand in January of ‘85 with nine-year-old Erin and 18-month old Ethan in tow.

Much to my chagrin, I have discovered another lapse in my continuous line of passports – another three “Mommy years,” this time during Ethan’s childhood.

Passport #5 was issued in 1989.  It took me to Denmark for my nephew’s wedding and to England to visit my aunt Edith. This is also the passport that was in my money-belt during the six weeks one summer when I led a group of teenage Girl Scouts on a five country European adventure we called “Europatrol ’98.”

Passport #6 was the magic carpet for more trips to England and a few wonderful “Elderhostel” tours —India with my sister, China and Australia with Tom. Passport number six also accompanied me to Chile and an assortment of countries in the newly established European Union. Passports of exploration, numbers six and seven represent my new, empty nest life. Travel was again a priority.   Best of all, passport #7 carries a visa stamp from a 2017 Vietnamese adventure I shared with my adult daughter, now a world traveler herself.

This past summer, just before leaving for a road trip, I noticed that my current travel documents were set to expire on my July birthday.  Desperate not to break the continuous string of passports I still believed in, I had my picture taken at the AAA office in Boulder, Colorado. That afternoon, I mailed in my documents, fee, and application.   This compulsion to always possess a valid passport resulted in a striking record of this time in my life.  Passport #8 is graced with the photo of an “older” woman with a startled expression and vivid turquoise hair, the result of a “fun colored-hair” phase I went through last year.

Due to health and safety restrictions on travel during the current pandemic, I have not yet used the turquoise-hair passport.  It will be interesting to see what happens the first time I present this colorful document at TSA.

If you have a collection of passports like mine, how significant are they for you? Is there one that means the most and why?

 

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Book Release in the Time of Covid

The summer of 2020 will stand out in history as the summer of Covid-19 – a time to avoid crowds at the beach and the amusement park, a summer when airports are more dangerous than sky-diving, and days of longing to gather with friends and family. The summer solstice has come and gone. But for most of us, at least in the US, July 4th Independence Day marks the beginning of full-on, serious vacation season. 2020 will be the summer of staycations. Those of us who have a pleasant patio, a comfortable lounge chair, and a good book will be the winners during this  stay-at-home summer.

The Covid-19 pandemic has changed the way we approach everything from grocery shopping to a trip to the dentist, from lunching with friends to that planned trip to visit aging parents. I had hoped to release Wherever the Road Leads in the fall, launched with the fanfare of library talks and book-store readings. Now none of this can happen. I need to think outside of the box.

Online selling and buying is booming while consumers are stuck at home. E-book sales are set to overtake the sale of physical books, because many buyers are hesitant to order a physical book touched by strangers.

A traditional book release usually starts with the hardback. This, it is hoped, will lure impatient fans to buy the more costly version. The paperback edition follows about 6 months to a year later.  Sometimes the e-book comes out concurrently with the hard-cover, sometimes a the same time as the paperback.

Would this standard schedule be the best way during these unstable times? Perhaps there is a plan that might work better in 2020.

With these thoughts rumbling about in my head, I decided to release my memoir of love, travel and a van on a somewhat odd timetable. The e-book will be available first, a tactic I hope will take advantage of escalating internet buying. I have set the release date for July 26. Later, with an eye to attracting holiday gift purchases, the hardcover edition will be released on November 30. After the high news days of the national election (and hopefully a slowing of the Corona virus), the paperback edition will be available in the end of January 2021 . . . . with additional fanfare and (hopefully) an actual launch party!

For e-book readers, the wait is almost over. In fact, the e-book version of Wherever the Road Leads is currently available for pre-order on Amazon and Smashwords, a distributor that supplies e-books directly, as well as to Apple Books and Barns and Noble.

You can pre-order Wherever the Road Leads by following links  below. Your e-book will be sent to your device on July 26:

https://www.amazon.com/Wherever-Road-Leads-Memoir-Travel-ebook/dp/B08C2BFZXD/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1C06OCV5KB3HE&dchild=1&keywords=wherever+the+road+leads&qid=1593820871&s=digital-text&sprefix=Wherever+the+Roa%2Caps%2C209&sr=1-1

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1029241

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/wherever-the-road-leads-k-lang-slattery/1137276841?ean=2940163014385

Questions about my memoir?  An opinion about my odd release plan?  Comments about my author page on Amazon? Please send your thoughts in the comment form below.  Thanks. Katie

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Metadata and Data – What, Why, and Where

Have you ever wondered, what exactly is Metadata?  And why do you keep hearing this term?

“Metadata is a set of data that describes and gives information about other data” – Google dictionary

” ‘Metadata is data that provides information about other data.’ In other words, it is ‘data about data.’” – Wikipedia

I know I’m not a techy. If I were maybe this would make sense to me. But I’m sorry, these definitions seem too much like the kind of definitions my 7th grade English students used to turn in.  You know, “a chicken is a bird.”   Way too simplistic. Though like this chicken definition, it does get you started.

I kept reading in author advice articles that metadata about my books is important. But this “data about data” definition left me confused.  I still needed to understand why its important, how to use it, where to get it, where to put it, and exactly (with examples) what it is.

My first question was, “What is the purpose of metadata?” According to Wikipedia, metadata “helps users find relevant information and discover resources.  .  .  .  For example, a digital image may include metadata that describes how large the picture is, the color depth, the image resolution, when the image was created, the shutter speed, and other data. A text document’s metadata may contain information about how long the document is, who the author is, when the document was written, and a short summary of the document.”

This was much better.  Not only does it give the why, it shows examples of specific metadata.

My next question was “how do I create metadata specific to my books?” It turns out that simply put, basic metadata for a book is any data that describes or classifies your work — title, sub-title, ISBN number, publisher, author name — in short, anything a reader might use to look up your book.  But it can be more too.  .   .  things like keywords, your author bio, the book description, review excerpts, number of pages, price, publication date, and its category in the BISAC subject heading list (an industry-approved list of subject descriptors).

Here is the basic metadata for Wherever the Road Leads.

Subtitle – A Memoir of Love, Travel, and a Van
Author – K. Lang-Slattery
Publisher – Pacific Bookworks
Publication date – July 26, 2020 – e-book/January 20, 2021 – paper and hard back (tentative)*
Launch party – January 23, 2021 (tentative)*
Print ISBNs – paperback – 978-1-7342796-4-1, hardcover – 978-1-7342796-3-4,
E-book ISBNs – Kindle/MOBI – 978-1-7342796-5-8, E-pub – 978-1-7342796-6-5
Number of pages – 348
Format – 6” X 9” Hardback, (5.5” X 8.5” Paperback?)
Number of illustrations – 14
Number of photos – 13
Number of maps – 7
Category: Travel Memoir
Retail Price: 15.95 (tentative)
Wholesale distribution: IngramSparks.com
Retail sales online: Amazon.com & Smashwords.com

Ok.  Now where do I put all this lovely metadata so it will actually help potential readers find my book? That turns out to be a long list of places that keep records of published books. These are the ones I use:

Bowker  – the world’s leading provider of bibliographic information, connecting publishers, authors, and booksellers with readers and the ONLY official source of ISBNs in the United States.
Library of Congress – Research library and de facto national library of the United States.
Amazon –Author pages and book sale pages both display book and author information.
Bookbub – a service that helps readers discover books and provides publishers and authors with marketing tools and strategies to help sell more books
Smashwords – a distributor of indie e-books
Book printers/Print on Demand – for me that’s IngramSparks and Kindle Direct Publishing.
Goodreads – site for readers and book recommendations.

One of the most helpful hints I found was advice to keep the metadata consistent.   To make this easier, I created a METADATA file for each of my books.  These files list all the important statistics, bios of various lengths, the cover image, keywords, and anything else that might be important or requested by one of the above platforms. With these files set up, all I have to do is copy and paste and .  .  . Voila! The wording and the data are the same everywhere.

I am now a metadata whiz. I hope this brief explanation helps you understand this techy term. And I hope my use of metadata will help new readers find my memoir, my novel, and the Caitlin books too.

*  Publication and launch dates for my memoir are tentative.  We are considering the staggered dates because of Covid19 conditions.  My thinking is to get the e-book out as soon as possible because e-books sales are  booming while people are stuck at home. The paperback & hardcover can be set up for pre-orders with a full release in January, after all the confusion and media blitz that will accompany the upcoming national election.  If you want to give Wherever the Road Leads as a holiday gift, let me know and I will see what is possible.  Perhaps an “artistic” gift certificate for an autographed copy will work. Then, with more publicity after the new year, I would do a launch in late January.  If an in-person launch party remains impossible, I will try for a virtual launch — a kind of Zoom party. Your thoughts on this plan would be appreciated.

 

 

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A Book Cover for Wherever the Road Leads

Efforts to design the perfect book cover for Wherever the Road Leads have been grueling. So many decisions! So many great ideas! Thank you to my wonderful team of advisors.

Recently, I posted blogs about selecting the photos and the pen and ink illustrations for my memoir. The process of choosing from an existing group of possibilities was much easier than creating a book cover. With a good designer there are infinite possibilities and variations. Ideas flow, but in the end I had to make the final choice.

A book’s cover fulfills many functions. It must represent the book’s story at a glance so a potential reader knows what to expect inside. The front cover should entice that reader to turn the book over and read the blurbs or reviews on the back or read the end-flaps of the paper jacket. A front cover design uses an image (or a collage of images) and displays the title (and the sub-title, if there is one) and the author’s name. Sometimes it also has a short excerpt from a review or a note such as “By the best-selling author of ………….”

Contemporary book covers tend to use simple images and very large fonts. The title, or if the author is famous the writer’s name, often dominates. A simple picture behind a huge font is easier to read in the thumbnail size used by on-line book retailers such as Amazon, BookBub, or Barnes and Noble.

Knowing these basic requirements my designer, Cole, and I set to work. In the beginning, I probably gave him too much input, including that I wanted to use my art work. I sent him a broad selection of my drawings, a watercolor, and a few of Tom’s photographic images I thought might work. Based on the title Wherever the Road Leads, we wanted to show a road and a van.

Several of my friends and a beta-reader had commented that the van is an important character in my memoir. But the image couldn’t be just any VW van—I insisted it be our green van, correct in every detail. Unfortunately, few of the photographs Tom took showed the van to advantage. “The Turtle” was either in dark shadow, hidden by trees and bushes, or out of focus. As a result, I began to make pen and ink drawings of the van. We hoped to photoshop these drawings into some of the pen and inks done on the trip. I scanned the black and white van drawings into Adobe Photoshop, then colored them using watercolor or colored pencil and scanned them again. Some needed refining or further clean up further. In the interest of accuracy, I created four versions— each showing a different side of the van with either a front or a rear aspect. I also drew separate versions showing the bundles we carried on the roof for the first year and the van with the roof-box Tom built for our overland trip to India. I am now totally over ever doing another drawing of our beloved green Turtle!

Cole created composite images setting the van into earlier 1972 landscapes and two new background images I created. Turning these into covers necessitated looking at fonts. My first choices were script fonts as these suggest a handwritten journal. However, script fonts proved difficult to make really bold and were often difficult to read.

After Cole created several cover designs we both liked (two in color and two in black and white), I sent them out in a poll to my beta-readers and some of my long-time friends familiar with our travel adventure. The results came back with two, strong winners, both in color.

However, one of the people polled, a free-lance editor who I have corresponded with over the years, commented that all the samples had a retro feel. She added that this might be OK as my story takes place in the 1970s but that I probably didn’t want prospective readers to bypass the memoir because it “looked like an old book.” She recommended that Cole and I study more modern covers; a suggestion I took seriously.

I also wanted to see what Cole might create with fewer  suggestions from me. I wanted to let his design talents fly. When he sent me the next set of samples, this time using stock images rather than my art work, I was prepared not to like them. But surprise! I loved what he had done. Further work with the images and with some of Tom’s photos we hadn’t considered before resulted in more contemporary cover designs. I sent out three of the new designs with the top two from the first round. The results were clear—the strongest contender remained one of the “retro” covers but with a more contemporary font arrangement.

I was definitely time for me to make a choice!

Here is the design that will be used as the cover for Wherever the Road Leads.

Now Lorie DeWorken, my interior designer, can proceed with the interior design, a subject for another post.

Lorie DeWorken, book designer. www.mindthemargins.com https://pubpronetwork.org/provider/mind-the-margins-llc/

Cole Waidley, graphic designer of logos, book covers, pamphlets, and clothing. https://www.linkedin.com/in/colewaidley

http://www.creativeshake.com/zoom.html?User_number=cwaidley&imagecount=2

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Paris Memoirs of Art and Love

Art and Paris memories flow from A Paris Year, by Janice MacLeod. I found this book just as the Covid-19 pandemic nudged into our consciousness. Days later, I regretfully cancelled a planned “April in Paris/Tulip season in the Netherlands” trip. Instead of walking the streets of Paris myself, I read Janice’s book, a delightful guide to the vicarious delights of France’s most famous city.

Too small to be a “coffee-table book,” A Paris Year is definitely gorgeous enough to be one. Printed on luxurious paper, the pages display MacLeod’s musings, photos, drawings and watercolors from her year living in the City of Light. The author shares her relaxed wanderings as she drinks thick, rich hot chocolate at a café table, collects old postcards at the flea market, snaps photos of art work and creepy gargoyles, and hints at her attraction to the neighborhood butcher. Designed to resemble an artist’s journal with a font that evokes hand written notes, the pages are dotted with coffee spills and the circular imprints of wine glasses. A Year in Paris is a book to inspire the artist and the traveler in you. I especially loved the occasional samples of watercolor hues found next to photos. These little rows of color squares hint at paintings waiting to be created.

My pleasure in this lovely work, drew me to the author’s previous book, Paris Letters, One Woman’s Journey from the Fast Lane to a Slow Stroll in Paris. This memoir, a prelude to A Year in Paris, is a joy. Janice begins her story in Los Angeles, where she is a well-paid upper-level advertising copy writer and editor. Unhappy with the clutter and stress of her life, Janice wonders how much money she would need to save to take off for a year of travel. Speculating that $100 a day might be enough if she were frugal (this was in 2010), MacLeod develops a plan for saving, spending less, and simplifying her life. “My first step to Paris started in my underwear drawer,” she writes. A year later her adventure begins with six-weeks in an apartment on rue Mouffetard in Paris.

MacLeod’s writing is relaxed, honest, and lightly humorous. To save for you the delight of discovery, I can only disclose that the neighborhood butcher is tall, good-looking, and responsive to Janice’s smiles. Besides her intimate adventures and city rambles, MacLeod starts an Etsy business to sell subscriptions for copies of hand-painted “Letters from Paris.” The memoir ends delightfully with a list of 100 suggestions on how to “save or not spend $100 a day.”

If you are partial to love stories, travel stories, and art, Paris Letters and A Year in Paris, two completely different renderings of the same story, will take you into a world far from the restrictions of sheltering at home. Both books rate five stars from me.

 

To see Janice MacLeod’s lovely hand-painted letters and other offerings on Etsy go to:

https://www.etsy.com/shop/JaniceMacLeodStudio

 

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Illustrations for a Travel Memoir, Wherever the Road Leads.

Wherever the Road Leads has always been planned as an illustrated memoir. After all, with a subtitle that starts       “An Artist’s Memoir . . .,” readers will expect to see artwork. Luckily, I didn’t have 1000 drawings to choose from like I did with the photos. However, because of page consideration (Print on Demand services charge by the finished number of pages), I still must be selective.

I was able to place some of my smaller sketches, including a few that were scrawled in the margins of my letters home, and a couple of my horizontal drawings, into the route maps that will separate sections of the finished book. That still left me with more drawings than I could use. Again, with the help of input from my readers, my editor, and a few long-time friends, I made the difficult selection.

I tried to choose drawings to represent different phases of our travels. However, extra busy days and long drives often inhibited my motivation to sit down and draw. The drive overland to India and the hectic days on the bumpy roads there were an especially difficult environment for drawing. Besides, my fascination with the colorful local ways of dressing let to studies of clothing, rather than the pen and ink landscapes I had previously done.

Some of the illustrations are quick sketches, usually done from my own photos or outside on location, en plein air. Others are more detailed pen and ink drawings, tighter, with more strokes and shading. These were often done using printed tourist postcards as inspiration. The high cost and long wait times to get film developed overseas in the 1970s (pre-24-hour service and digital photography), often made it impossible for me use photos I had taken myself. I think you will easily see the difference between the two styles of drawing.

I hope you will enjoy a few of the drawings below that I have selected to illustrate Wherever the Road Leads. I’ve included one of the illustrated route maps too. I’d love to see comments in the form below this post.

Which drawing is your favorite?

Sketch of San Miguel de Allende

 

 

 

 

 

 

            

 

 

     Spanish Street                                                                                            The Rhine River Valley.                                                                                                                 .

Costume study, southern India                                                                                  

 

 

 

 

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Photos for a Travel Memoir

Selecting the illustrations for Wherever the Road Leads has sent me down memory lane yet again. I plan for the book to have three kinds of illustrations:

• Photos taken by Tom of our travels

• Pen-and-ink drawings I did along the way

• Route maps with small sketches to show where we went

I concentrated on the photos first. Several months ago, I went through all the slides (I’d estimate almost 1,000) Tom and I took over the two years we traveled in the van. It was interesting to see that, in the beginning, we didn’t do much photography.   Maybe we were too worried about car troubles during the first several months of our adventure.  However, as the time rolled by, Tom took more and more pictures.  By the time we got to India, he was adept at using his two lenses, especially the telescopic.

Somehow I was able to narrow the slices down by half. Next I then sent the best 500 slides to Costco to be digitalized and stored on a CD as well as on Google photos. Another pass through the pictures, with my daughter’s help, enabled me to narrow the selection to about 25 I thought could make good book illustrations.

Because of the prohibitive cost of printing the interior with any color, all the photos had to be converted into black and white. My wonderful graphic artist, Cole Waidley, accomplished this easily. He also sharpened their focus as much as possible and I  cropped a few of the images to improve their composition. Now we were ready for the next step.

I sent a selection of the best photos to my beta-readers, my editor, and a few friends who have heard segments of the story over many years of friendship. The input I received helped me select the 13 photo illustrations that will appear in Wherever the Road Leads.

Here are a few I thought you might enjoy now. Which is your favorite?  Do you think these photos help tell the story?

Tom and me at our wedding.                         Washing laundry in a river while village children watch.

                                        

 

I loved shopping for spices at the Moroccan Souk.                My nephew and niece enjoy smoked eel with me.

                                       

 

 

 

 

 

Tom and I enjoy a lunch of boiled shrimp in Norway.        Main street in Herat, Afghanistan.

       

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Travel as Education (after the Pandemic)

For those of us with travel in our DNA, this is a difficult time. We are stranded in our homes with no place to go. Besides this, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, many parents have unexpectedly found themselves home alone educating their children. As they struggle with this difficult role, many parents can’t wait for schools to reopen. They want their children back in a classroom environment.

It seems like a good time to share my belief that education outside the classroom can be just as important to expanding minds as any normal schoolroom curriculum. Subjects like science, literature, art, history, civics, anthropology, and geography are easily pursued at home with the aid of the internet and books. Paradoxically, the current stay-at-home orders remind me of the value of travel for children. OK, I can hear you screaming, “But we can’t travel! We have to stay at home.” Very true. Please bear with me as I unravel the mental links.

After this is over, don’t forget the ways your kids flourished at home during these restricted days. They are rediscovering books (literature)? Cooking side by side with family members (nutrition and science)? Coloring thank-you notes for nurses and doctors (art and service)? Have they taken up sewing protective face masks for the homeless (practical skills and social responsibility)? Are they Googling? Streaming documentaries? Learning to dance? Searching for answers on the internet? This hands-on style of learning is not unlike the way travel can expand a child’s understanding of the world. So, when we return to “normal,” when we are back at work and our children are back in the classroom, I urge parents to be unafraid. When life opens up again, try travel with your children to expand their world view.

In her memoir, At Home in the World, Tsh Oxenreider declares in her preface, “I can shout from the rooftops that you can both love to travel and be happily married with children . . . Parenting and global travel—I can’t think of a better mix.” Tsh tells of the ups and downs of her family’s extended journey through details, conversation, specific travel experiences, and humor. It is clear by the end of this delightful memoir that her children have grown and matured during their international adventure. They have learned more about the world and about themselves than they ever could in a traditional classroom.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am an ex-teacher myself and I value classroom education. Essential for learning the basics of reading, math, science, history, and socialization, traditional education, at its best, coordinates facts and perfects skills. However, the experiences of travel can take children a step further. I’m not talking here about skiing and beach vacations at a resort, though these can be fun and relaxing. What I want to encourage parents to try with their children is the art of serious travel and discovery. Anything from a week at a national park exploring nature to a year traveling Europe in a van—there is no better way to help children connect with the world around them and develop critical thinking skills. In the long term, a few weeks lost from the regular school year won’t be missed and benefits will far surpass your expectations.

My experiences traveling with children —from two summer months traveling in a van around Great Britain and the Netherlands with my school-aged niece and nephew (see photo to left of Mike, Michelle, and myself eating smoked eel in The Netherlands, from my memoir, Wherever the Road Leads), to a winter month in New Zealand with our 18-month-old son and nine-year-old daughter in tow, to six-weeks backpacking Europe with a group of teen-aged Girl Scouts (photo right)—I am convinced that travel is a gift worth sharing. I challenge you to offer the experience if you haven’t already. You will be amazed to see what happens.

 

A few suggestions:

• Encourage the kids to help plan activities and places to go.

• Allow time between intense travel for relaxing.

• Make contact with local families and/or spend time at playgrounds.

• Encourage reading about the area you are visiting and limit access to TV and smart phones.

• Have the kids keep a journal or write postcards to themselves to mail home.

• Teach basic travel skills (how to use the metro, map/GPS reading, packing, safety in crowds, etc.)

• Don’t limit yourself to school vacations when lines can be frustrating. Besides, going during the school year will make your kids feel special.

In addition, two very important parenting suggestions:

• Know your children’s interests and responsiveness to different types of experiences. My son, an adventurous traveler as an adult, was an enigma in his youth. As a seven-year-old, he earned the nickname of “The Sponge” due to his insatiable interest in American history during a summer visiting Williamsburg, Plymouth, Boston, Washington, DC. and New York City, where he (unbelievably) fell in love with Tiffany stained glass at the Metropolitan museum. Three years later on a trip to Hawaii, he was decent company only at the beach or when we flew in a helicopter over a bubbling volcano. He was little more than an ill-tempered slug at cultural activities (luaus and museums).

• Allow some time for adult decompression, even if this means Father and Mother take turns or utilize local day-care opportunities. I’ll never forget the lovely sight of my toddler son sound asleep in an old-fashioned pram (photo on right) when we returned to pick him up from the municipal infant day care (known as a crèche) in Christchurch, New Zealand. Even better was the gourmet dinner I had enjoyed without a nursing child in my lap.

Here is an interesting article about planning travel after Covid-19: https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/tips/how-plan-your-first-post-pandemic-trip/?m_campaign=wp_by_the_way&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_bytheway

What is your “travel with children” experience? Do you have any important tips to share?

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