Travels and Travails

I LOVE travel writing. The piece about Mozart was followed by one on Venice, as seen through the eyes of the wonderful Commissario Brunetti (Donna Leon's creation). Then I wrote about being a WWOOFer - a willing worker on organic farms. I was very pleased when both articles were accepted for the upcoming issue of YL (Your Life) magazine. Another piece - on Freud's Vienna- is scheduled to appear in 'The Australian' before Christmas.
Writing travel articles requires you to be succinct, to create 'colour' with only a few words. It's also a real challenge to come up with fresh angles on heavily visited areas. But because it gets you remembering and researching, you can extend the holiday feeling indefinetely. My partner's photos have been featured too, which is a real buzz.
To something quite different- in October, I attended a meeting hosted by the Victorian Women's Trust on 'Water'. The featured speaker was my hero, the Canadian activist, Maude Barlow. Inspired by her, I wrote an article - 'Water: Drawing a Line in the Sand' - for my local family therapy journal.
As for 'The Crowded Nest', since its small homegrown publisher (Lothian Books) has been gobbled up (or maybe that should be axed) by the huge multinational, Hachette Livre, I've felt totally unsupported. All the publicity has fallen to me, and I must say I've felt like a very small minnow in a huge roiling sea.