Catching up with a winter’s worth of Rolf news

The past several months have kept me busy with both travel and writing, and it’s been awhile since I’ve blogged about my various personal projects. Here’s a quick roundup of what I’ve been up to:

• I just finished the manuscript of my newest book, an unorthodox collection of travel essays that will be published this fall. I’ll announce more details about this as the release date approaches.
• I spent most of this winter in South America — mainly Brazil, Chile, and the Falkland Islands. A number of magazine stories about these journeys (including a Falklands feature for National Geographic Traveler) will appear later this year.
• My story “Death of an Adventure Traveler,” which first appeared in The Smart Set last November, was included in Travelers’ Tales’ newest anthology, The Best Travel Writing 2008, edited by James O’Reilly, Larry Habegger, and Sean O’Reilly. Other notable contributors include Sara Wheeler, Catherine Watson, Tony Perrottet, and Richard Goodman.
• The current issue of The Believer, which is focused on film, contains my essay “Humor Doesn’t Translate Internationally.” This story, which expands on a New York Times Magazine story I wrote last fall, examines the Hollywood B-movie business of “mockbusters” — cheaply produced straight-to-DVD films with names like Transmorphers and The Da Vinci Treasure, created with the clear intention of trading in on the notoriety of theatrical films like Transformers and The Da Vinci Code.
• I recently reviewed a couple of travel books for World Hum. “The Trouble With ‘Smile When You’re Lying’” takes a look at Chuck Thompson’s recent book, and examines how most travel-writing criticism sells itself on an exaggerated sense that the reader is getting privileged information. “One Man’s Odyssey into ‘Eat, Pray, Love’” takes a look at Elizabeth Gilbert’s bestseller from a male point of view. Both of these book reviews are included on my recently created Essays page at RolfPotts.com, which includes a collection of my commentary and criticism dating back to 1996.
• I’ve appeared in a number of interviews in recent weeks, including a Q&A with the Times Online in the U.K., and a vagabonding-themed Q&A with National Geographic Traveler editor-in-chief Keith Bellows (which isn’t available as text online, though a video outtake is available at the NGT website). I also shared a list of my favorite bookstores around the world for National Geographic Traveler‘s Intelligent Travel blog.
• In the TV realm, I recently appeared (alongside a number of my writing colleagues) as a travel expert in two Travel Channel specials: 25 Mind Blowing Escapes, which debuted in December, and 21 Sexiest Beaches, which debuted last month.
• On a final note, slots are still available for my creative nonfiction writing classes this summer at the Paris American Academy. More information for this month-long writing program, which also includes fiction and performance classes, can be found online here. Students from the 2006 and 2007 Paris programs have had some great success getting published in recent weeks, and I’ll announce those details soon, in a separate post.