Bernd Brunner is the author of The Art of Lying Down: A Guide to Horizontal Living, Bears: A Brief History, Moon: A Brief History, Inventing the Christmas Tree, and The Ocean at Home: An Illustrated History of the Aquarium. His books have been translated into several languages, and his writing has appeared in Zeit Geschichte, Die Welt, Cabinet, and Neue Zürcher Zeitung, among many others. A native of Berlin, Germany, he lives in Istanbul, Turkey, where he delves deeply into a very different language.
Kevin Chroust lives in Chicago and is a 2005 graduate of Colorado State University. His sportswriting has appeared in publications from Chicago to San Francisco to Japan. He contributes to Yahoo! Sports and the online magazine the Nervous Breakdown, which published an excerpt of his recently completed memoir, Fix. Find him on Twitter @kevinchroust.
Rich Cohen is the author of nine books, including Tough Jews, Sweet and Low, and The Fish That Ate the Whale. His latest, Monsters: The 1985 Chicago Bears and the Wild Heart of Football, was published in October 2013. He lives in Connecticut.
Judy Copeland’s travel essays have appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, the Florida Review, Legal Studies Forum, Literal Latte, the Malahat Review, Water~Stone Review, and Travelers’ Tales anthologies. Since 2005, she has taught creative nonfiction at the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey.
Christopher de Bellaigue is a writer and broadcaster on the Middle East and South Asia. His most recent book is Patriot of Persia: Muhammad Mossadegh and a Tragic Anglo-American Coup.
Jesse Dukes is an independent writer and documentary filmmaker. For many years, he worked as a wilderness trip leader in Maine and California. He studied radio at the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies, worked for With Good Reason at the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, and is a principal at Big Shed Media. In 2011, his VQR essay “Consider the Lobstermen” was selected as one of Byliner’s Spectacular Nonfiction Stories. He recently produced the radio documentary The Great Moonshine Conspiracy, which aired on American Public Media’s The Story and public radio stations. He is a contributing editor at the Virginia Quarterly Review and the founder of and principal at Pioneer Media Grantwriting.
David Farley is the author of the award-winning travel memoir/narrative history An Irreverent Curiosity: In Search of the Church’s Strangest Relic in Italy’s Oddest Town, which is currently being made into a documentary, and coeditor of the anthology of essays Travelers’ Tales Prague and the Czech Republic: True Stories. He’s a contributing writer at Afar magazine and frequently writes for the New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, National Geographic Traveler, World Hum, and Gadling, among other publications. He teaches writing at New York University. His online home is www.dfarley.com.
Ian Frazier is the author of Great Plains, The Fish’s Eye, On the Rez, Family, and Travels in Siberia, as well as Coyote v. Acme, Dating Your Mom, and Lamentations of the Father. A frequent contributor to The New Yorker, he lives in Montclair, New Jersey.
Dimiter Kenarov is a freelance journalist and contributing editor at the Virginia Quarterly Review. His work has appeared in Esquire, Outside, The Nation, the International Herald Tribune, and Foreign Policy, among others. He currently lives in Sofia, Bulgaria.
Colleen Kinder has written essays and articles for the New Republic, Salon, National Geographic Traveler, the New York Times, Gadling, TheAtlantic.com, the Wall Street Journal, Ninth Letter, A Public Space, the New York Times Magazine, and Creative Nonfiction. She is the author of Delaying the Real World and currently teaches travel writing at Yale.
Peter Jon Lindberg is a New York–based travel journalist and essayist and the editor at large for Travel + Leisure. He is a two-time James Beard Award finalist for his food writing, was named a Travel Journalist of the Year by the Society of American Travel Writers (SATW) in 2005, and was nominated for a National Magazine Award in 2010 for his columns and commentary in Travel + Leisure. He can be reached via his website, www.peterjonlindberg.com.
David Sedaris is the author of the books Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls, Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk, When You Are Engulfed in Flames, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, Me Talk Pretty One Day, Holidays on Ice, Naked, and Barrel Fever. He is a regular contributor to The New Yorker and BBC Radio 4. He lives in England.
Sex, pop culture, nascent trends, and eccentric characters are all grist for Grant Stoddard’s mill. With an eye for the surprising and ridiculous, the British-born Stoddard often reports from a participatory perspective, imbuing his stories with an engaging, visceral, dynamic feel and a humanistic focus. Stoddard has had two books published, Working Stiff: The Misadventures of an Accidental Sexpert and Great in Bed, which he coauthored with Dr. Debby Herbenick of the Kinsey Institute.
John Jeremiah Sullivan is a contributing editor for the New York Times Magazine and the author of Pulphead: Essays (2011).
Sarah A. Topol moved to Egypt in 2008. Her writing has been published in the Atlantic, Businessweek, Esquire, GQ, Harper’s Magazine, Newsweek, the New York Times, and Slate, among others. She has reported from Bahrain, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Libya, Pakistan, Russia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen as well as Gaza and the West Bank. She won the 2012 Kurt Schork Award in International Journalism for her coverage of the civil war in Libya. She lived in Cairo for four and a half years and recently relocated to Istanbul.
Daniel Tyx teaches English at South Texas College in McAllen, where he lives with his wife, Laura, and their two young children. He is at work on a collection of essays about the U.S.-Mexico border, several of which have appeared in Gulf Coast, the Gettysburg Review, CutBank, and Blue Mesa Review.
Lynn Yaeger is contributing editor to Travel + Leisure and Vogue and also contributes to many other publications. She lives in New York City.
Notable Travel Writing of 2012
SELECTED BY JASON WILSON
LISA ABEND
Spain Lets Loose. Afar, May/June.
ROSECRANS BALDWIN
Our French Connection. The Morning News, May 29.
AIMEE BENDER
Another Angle on L.A. Afar, February.
KEN BENSINGER
The Frequent Fliers Who Flew Too Much. Los Angeles Times, May 5.
JANE BERNSTEIN
Desperately Seeking Subtext. Creative Nonfiction, Spring.
RITA WELTY BOURKE
The Larry Brown Discovery Tour. Chattahoochee Review, vol. 31, no. 3.
JOHN BRANCH
Snow Fall. New York Times, December 23.
NATHANIEL BRODIE
Sparks. Creative Nonfiction, Spring.
FRANK BURES
The Crossing. Nowhere, September.
The Reunion. The Washington Post Magazine, March 11.
JESSICA COLLEY
Catching the Gist. World Hum, August 7.
LAUREN COLLINS
The British Invasion. The New Yorker, April 16.
BILL DONAHUE
Into the Woods. Afar, December.
WILLIAM FINNEGAN
Slow and Steady. The New Yorker, January 23.
DEVIN FRIEDMAN
The Best Night $500,000 Can Buy. GQ, September.
RACHEL FRIEDMAN
Discovery. Creative Nonfiction, Summer.
RIVKA GALCHEN
Wild West Germany. The New Yorker, April 9.
KEITH GESSEN
Polar Express. The New Yorker, December 24 and 31.
LENORE GREINER
Translating Respect. World Hum, June 27.
PETER GWIN
Rhino Wars. National Geographic, March.
A. E. HOTCHNER
A Legend as Big as the Ritz. Vanity Fair, July.
RAFI KOHAN
From Beads to the Big House. GQ, February.
JANE KRAMER
A Reporter at Odds. The New Yorker, July 23.
PETER LASALLE
With Nathanael West in Hollywood. Memoir, issue 11 (December).
EVGENY LEBEDEV
Beyond Black Hawk Down. Vanity Fair, May.
I Was a Las Vegas Concierge. Travel + Leisure, June.
JOYCE MAYNARD
On the Road Again. T Magazine, Winter.
LINDA WATANABE MCFERRIN
Bali Belly and the Zombie Apocalypse. World Hum, May 17.
TONI MIROSEVICH
The Deposit. Bellevue Literary Review, Fall.
JASON MOTLAGH
Irrawaddy. Virginia Quarterly Review, vol. 88, no. 3 (Summer).
CHRIS NORRIS
The Real World. Travel + Leisure, February.
LAWRENCE OSBORNE
Tourist-Free Thailand. Afar, June.
STEPHANIE PEARSON
The Undisputed King of Dogsled Tourism. Outside, January.
BASHARAT PEER
Modern Mecca. The New Yorker, April 16.
JULIA PHILLIPS
Twilight on the Tundra. The Morning News, November 27.
WILLIAM POWERS
Finding the Perfect Wave in Liberia, The Atlantic, July/August.
TOM PRESTON
Where Everybody Knows Your Name. Vanity Fair, March.
EMILY RABOTEAU
The Throne of Zion, The Believer, October.
AMY SERAFIN
Oyster Safari. The Smart Set, December 14.
GRETA SCHULER
Empty Boxes. Chattahoochee Review, vol. 32, no. 1.
GARY SHTEYNGART
Hungry for Madrid. Travel + Leisure, May.
AARON LAKE SMITH
Death of the American Hobo. Vice, vol. 19, no. 10 (October).
CHRISTOPHER SOLOMON
Grand Slammed. Outside, July.
ILAN STAVANS AND JOSHUA ELLISON
Reclaiming Travel. Opinionator, July 7.
JOHN JEREMIAH SULLIVAN
Where Hope and History Don’t Rhyme. The New York Times Magazine, February 12.
PATRICK SYMMES
The Beautiful Game. Outside, October.
NATHAN THORNBURGH
Something Wicked This Way Larps. Roads & Kingdoms, July 19.
GUY TREBAY
Mysteries of Milan. Travel + Leisure, February.
CALVIN TRILLIN
Land of the Seven Moles. The New Yorker, December 3.
JASON WILSON
Food for Thought. The Washington Post Magazine, September 16.
ELLIOTT D. WOODS
The Last Happy Skull. Virginia Quarterly Review, vol. 88, no. 3 (Summer).
About the Editor
ELIZABETH GILBERT, editor, is the author of four books, has been a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award, and has had pieces published in Spin, GQ, and the New York Times Magazine. She is best known for her memoir, Eat, Pray, Love, which chronicles her travels around the world. Her latest novel is The Signature of All Things.
Footnotes
1 Research shows Dan is not a reputable source. People have died as recently as 2009.
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2 The faith healer’s surname is sometimes spelled “Mwasipile” or “Masapila,” sometimes in the same article. “Mwasapila” is the most common spelling and conforms to the most common pronunciation, although the w is quite subtle.
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3 The common word for these payments is chai, which, of course, literally means “tea.” The same word can mean either a small bribe or a legitimate tip one might offer a waitress, driver, or bellhop. The use of chai could be a way for officials or police to have deniability (“I was just asking for something to drink!”), or it may reflect the attitude that rather than extorting the payee, the official is actually performing an extra service, helping the payee out of an administrative jam he has created by having the wrong papers or a broken taillight.
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4 The CD4 count is one of several metrics used to measure the progress of HIV. The metric is literally the number of a certain type of white blood cells per cubic millimeter of blood. A CD4 count of 500 or higher is considered normal. Counts under 500 indicate HIV infection. Counts under 200 indicate AIDS. The World Health Organization recommends ARV therapy for anybody with a CD4 below 350, but Tanzania does not provide ARVs to patients unless their CD4 is 200 or less, possibly due to a shortage of ARVs.
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5 Conventional wisdom among expatriate tour operators, researchers, and NGO workers in Tanzania holds that it’s almost impossible to find a government official in his or her office, since they travel as often as possible. The government salaries are relatively low, but the per diem rate is generous, and most officials can find food and lodging for about $15 a day, pocketing the balance, which allows them to double or triple their salary. The practice may be infuriating, but it is considered aboveboard.
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6 I later learn that an herbal medicine company has done exactly this over the summer, marketing a “mugariga extract.”
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7 A placebo effect has never been shown to have a long-term impact on diabetes, but Dr. Tor Wager, an expert in placebo effects, wrote this to me in a private letter: “Sensory cues can generate an insulin response, but only (as far as I know) after conditioning: i.e., when you sit down to dinner, the associated cues cause insulin release. This is probably less related to conscious belief than it is to low-level learning in your brain, but nobody really knows whether beliefs in a one-time cure could affect insulin levels.”
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The Best American Travel Writing 2013 Page 26
