The Gathering that Changed My Life
The annual Book Passage travel writers conference has propelled my writing career and enriched my life
“Do you mind if I join you?” I tentatively asked three titans of travel seated at an outdoor table on the final day of the Book Passage travel writers seminar. That was a sunny Sunday in August 1992, and I was an attendee at the first annual travel conference.
At the table were British author of travel and empire, Jan Morris, SF Examiner & Chronicle travel editor Don George, and Book Passage owner Elaine Petrocelli. They effusively invited me to sit with them — that place at the table led me to feel I could find my way as a travel writer.
Since then, largely due to what I learned and the connections I’ve made at the Book Passage conference, I’ve written for National Geographic, the travel sections of the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times, among other publications ranging from Hemispheres to O the Oprah Magazine.
I’ve reported from more than 20 countries, including Guatemala (the subject of my first travel story), Kenya, Chile, New Zealand, Cambodia and Peru. In 1999, I was invited to serve on the Book Passage conference faculty and have been back nearly every year since.
This year’s conference is Aug. 14-17. It’s been the best investment I’ve made in my career — and my life.
The conference combines morning writing and photography classes with afternoon panels about the state of the travel industry. It connects participants with editors who can publish their work and is an annual gathering of people who love exploring the world and who are propelled by curiosity.
As Pauline Frommer, the editorial director of Frommer’s guidebooks, noted in a recent essay, “You have deeper, richer travel experiences when you hit the road with a goal.” Frommer, a longtime Book Passage faculty member, will be back for this year’s conference.
At the conference and at subsequent bookstore events, I met renowned authors Peter Matthiessen, Frances Mayes, Tim Cahill, Pico Iyer, Arthur Frommer, and of course Jan Morris, who captivated us all at the inaugural 1992 event.
Those encounters led to my first literary book, A Sense of Place, a collection of interviews conducted with travel writers, many of whom I’d met at Book Passage, including Bill Bryson, Isabel Allende, Morris, Matthiessen, Cahill and Mayes.
Morris invited me to visit her at her home in Wales. I thought that’d be a fine way to start a travel piece, so I pitched the idea to Keith Bellows, then the editor of National Geographic Traveler. I proposed going to Wales, asking Jan to suggest a weeklong itinerary, and writing that story for the magazine.
Keith assigned the story. When I arrived, Jan took me to lunch in Pen-y-Gwyrd, the lodge where the 1953 Everest climbers trained. We had lunch under the signatures of Edmund Hillary and other climbers who’d made the first successful summit of Everest.
When I asked Jan where to go and what to see, she said, “Oh Michael, you’ll find your way.” I had to press her to provide just one suggestion, and she finally offered: “You may want to look in on the archdruid.”
And so began my brief but rich and rewarding exploration of northwest Wales.
What’s so special about the conference is that there are no walls, visible or invisable, between faculty and participants. We chat together, we drink and dine together, we even sing karaoke together on the conference’s final night.
We forge writers groups and lifelong friendships, and look forward to reconvening every August. It’s remarkable how many attendees return year after year.
Ultimately, it’s more than the tremendous amount we learn about writing and photography. The conference is about community and lives well lived.
Working as a freelance writer can, at times, be a lonely endeavor. Yet the connections and conversations we share each August energize and inspire us for the months ahead.
The 2025 Book Passage Travel Writers and Photographers conference is Aug. 14-17. Click this link to join us!
See you soon, Michael!
Outstanding