I love interviewing authors because they have so much to say. I learned that the easy way when I put together my first literary book, “A Sense of Place” — a collection of conversations with travel writers. Last fall I spoke with a hero of mine,...
In the fall of 2009, Mariner magazine asked if I’d go to Mazatlan to write about the cliff divers there. I’d watched cliff divers in Acapulco during the ’70s on ABC’s Wide World of Sports but didn’t know they were still plunging into the...
In the early 1990s, Cowboy Junkies lead vocalist Margo Timmins performed just for me. I sat about 30 feet away from her and she sang one of her favorites, “Misguided Angel” to an audience of one. But I’m not sure she even noticed me. I was at the...
Michael Shapiro first met Jan Morris in 1992 at a travel writing seminar near San Francisco. “When I first met Jan she seemed like a visitor from another time,” Shapiro says. He interviewed Morris in Llanystumdwy for his book A Sense of Place: Great Travel Writers...
After seeing what FLW did with the Guggenheim, I expected his desert home to be outrageous and astonishing. Of course it wasn’t – the low-slung building fit perfectly with their desert surroundings. Following is my story on the witty and enormously...
When my book A Sense of Place came out a few years ago I got compliments about being a good interviewer. But here’s the secret: I interviewed people — the world’s leading travel writers — who had something to say. I had a similarly delightful...
