Earlier this month, while traveling through France, I managed to get myself arrested at a casino in Normandy.

This is certainly not the best way to begin a day-trip to the French coast, but — as I’d told my travel-writing students the previous week — it is a good way to begin a travel story. Not getting arrested, necessarily, but setting the hook. Implying drama. Creating interest. Giving the reader something to come back to. … Read more »