Anastasia Ashman and Jennifer Gokmen at RolfPotts.com

This month at the RolfPotts.com Travel Writers page, I interview Anastasia M. Ashman and Jennifer Eaton Gokmen, who co-edited the nonfiction anthology Tales from the Expat Harem: Foreign Women in Modern Turkey.

Ashman’s advice to aspiring travel writers is to read the bulletin boards at Travelwriters.com. “[There’s a] lot of very fundamental wisdom there about the life and business of travel writing,” she says. “Warning: Don’t post a word at Travelwriters.com until you’ve read the boards for a week or two and have a good understanding of what topics have already been covered, and how best to introduce yours.”

Gokmen adds this advice: “Don’t quit your day job; instead let your day job bankroll your writing aspirations. Avoid being swept up into the romance of the idea; just because travel is exotic doesn’t mean the writing profession is any less routine than a 9 to 5 desk job. Tenacity counts for more than any single personal attribute. If you are going to make it, it will only be via your unflagging, inexhaustible, indestructible ability to persevere.”

Full interview online here.

Posted by | Comments (1)  | June 4, 2007
Category: Travel News


One Response to “Anastasia Ashman and Jennifer Gokmen at RolfPotts.com”

  1. Tim Says:

    I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Anastasia and Jennifer personally and listening to them talk about their book and Turkey (where I lived for a while.) Jennifer has a great story in the current issue of Perceptive Travel:

    https://www.perceptivetravel.com/issues/0507/gokmen.html