The subject matter of the stories on the surface... there seem to be a number of stories about travel.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I wouldn't say that I'm a travel novelist, but rather a novelist who travels - and who uses travel as a background for finding stories of places.
When I was young, I assumed that authors must have traveled the world or done exotic things in order to tell great stories.
A good story can travel in time and borders; it hits you no matter where you are.
The truth is I'm not really interested in travel writing as it's generally conceived, and even less so in female travel writing.
Writers and travelers are mesmerized alike by knowing of their destinations.
I'm a storyteller; that's what exploration really is all about. Going to places where others haven't been and returning to tell a story they haven't heard before.
Travel books are, by and large, boring. They lodge uncomfortably between fact, fiction and autobiography.
Travel definitely affects me as a writer.
Writing a story is kind of like surfing, as opposed to the novel, where you use a GPS to get somewhere. With surfing, you kind of jump.
The one thing that's terrible about traveling for fun is writing about it.