Featured Book
Share Your Journey – Mastering Personal Writing
I’m pleased to announce the publication of a book I’ve been working on for twenty years: Share Your Journey: Mastering Personal Writing.
It contains the (surprisingly easy) techniques professional writers use to write personal memoirs and travel stories that connect with editors and readers.
This fun and well-illustrated handbook is filled with cartoons, music, and film references, as well as plenty of examples of good and bad writing. It’s based on the writing workshops I’ve run in some twenty countries.
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Featured Articles
Enhancing the Narrative
A historian quickly learns there is little absolute truth. The authors of personal memoirs and observer narratives enhance, misremember (sometimes deliberately), censor, and leave out chunks of information.
Rarely, though, do historians try to go beyond the facts and speculate on the emotions, intentions, and psychological motivations of their research subjects.
As a fun exercise, I’ve created several “imagined conversations” between Alfred Russel Wallace and his assistant Ali, based on tidbits of information and provocative clues found in Wallace’s narratives.
News & Events
Happy Return to UK for Alfred Russel Wallace
Jilted, Culture Shock, Illness, Writer’s Block, and Unpacking 20,000 Beetles Stress From Alfred Russel Wallace’s Move Caused a Long Delay in Writing His Most Famous Book Happy Return to UK for Alfred Russel Wallace (1862) — April 1 HURSTPIERPOINT, West Sussex, England Moving is one of life’s most stressful activities. Consider Alfred […]
10 November — Opening of COP 30 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
Ah, yet another international gathering to discuss progress in addressing the problem of climate change. This year it will be held in Belém, Brazil, and the participants will also focus on nature conservation in the country, including the vast Amazon region. I’ve been following Victorian naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace for some 50 years, including a […]
Intro to a speculative biography of Ali
My speculative biography of Ali, Alfred Russel Wallace’s assistant, was honored as the Best Historical Book of 2024 by the United States Peace Corps Writers. Here’s an excerpt from the book’s introduction. Look Here, Sir, What a Curious Bird Intro to a speculative biography of Ali, Alfred Russel Wallace’s assistant in the Malay Archipelago […]