Turning Your Travels into Tales with Suzanne Roberts

Community Resource Center
587 Palm Canyon Dr
Borrego Springs, CA. 92004

10:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.

Member: $75
Non-member: $95

Have you ever wondered how to transform your adventures into compelling stories? This workshop will help you turn your trips into tales. We will discuss the different types of travel writing, focusing on longform place-based narrative nonfiction (though poets and fiction writers are welcome). Topics covered will include keeping a travel journal; research and audience; place-based specifics and sensory detail in setting; the human landscape and use of effective dialog and narrative voice; the development of action and arc; and the ethical considerations involved in writing about travel. We will also touch on revision, editing, and finding possible markets for your work. Please bring paper and pen, as this will be a generative workshop.

Suzanne Roberts is the author of the award-winning books, Animal Bodies: On Death, Desire, and Other Difficulties, Bad Tourist: Misadventures in Love and Travel, and Almost Somewhere: Twenty-Eight Days on the John Muir Trail, as well as four poetry collections. Named “The Next Great Travel Writer” by National Geographic’s Traveler, Suzanne’s work has been listed as notable in Best American Essays and included in The Best Women’s Travel Writing. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, CNN, National Geographic Traveler, Creative Nonfiction, Brevity, The Rumpus, Ploughshares, The Normal School, River Teeth, and elsewhere. She holds a doctorate in literature and the environment from the University of Nevada-Reno and teaches in the low residency MFA in creative writing at UNR-Tahoe. Her book on creative writing craft, 52 Writing Prompts: Inspiration for the Creative Writer, is forthcoming from the University Nebraska Press.

Min: 5, Max: 20