Seven days with Larry Habegger (executive editor of Travelers’ Tales) on a classic Turkish gulet in the Aegean Sea

September 20-27, 2008

On this seven-day intensive workshop sailing on a traditional Turkish yacht you’ll learn the ins and outs of crafting a superb story and how to bring your work to print, whether it’s a short essay or a book-length memoir. Larry Habegger, co-editor of Travelers’ Tales books, helps you develop powerful stories with simple tools and plot the course to successful publication.

In this workshop you will learn how to:

• unearth kernels of inspiration
• find the right way in
• create the ideal structure to give a story maximum substance and meaning
• access memory to add depth and texture
• use techniques of fiction to add drama and suspense
• craft the perfect ending
• edit to make the story a page-turner
• develop the kind of book proposal publishers are eager to see
• create the perfect marketing plan so your book will sell
• write like a poet but think like a publicist

Instructor, Larry Habegger

In almost thirty years in the travel writing business, both as a freelance travel writer and an editor of books and hundreds of stories in the Travelers’ Tales series, Larry Habegger has developed a fine eye for what makes a story work. He shares his knowledge at numerous writers’ conferences, writing workshops, and individual coaching sessions, both online and off.

He has been covering the world since his international travels began in the 1970s. As a freelance writer or almost three decades and syndicated columnist since 1985, Larry’s work has appeared in numerous major newspapers and magazines, including the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Travel & Leisure, and Outside. In 1993 Habegger founded the award-winning Travelers’ Tales publishing company with James and Tim O’Reilly, and as co-editor has helped edit all of the company’s books. Larry is an inspiring writing teacher and coach, and has been on the faculty of the Book Passage Travel Writers & Photographers Conference annually since 1994. He lives with his family on Telegraph Hill in San Francisco.

Program

Daily writing exercises will help you find the focus of your story, and discussions will provide guidance for shaping and polishing. Participants will gain confidence about what makes a story work and how to make it shine in the marketplace.
The group workshop will be structured around our tour of the Turkish coast and will include:

• maximum of 12 participants
• emphasis on personal travel narrative and memoir, but open to other forms
• hour-long group workshops each morning
• daily one-on-one consultations with Larry
• writing assignments to prime your pump
• afternoons devoted to writing and exploring the Turkish coast
• evening group reading and discussion of participants’ work
• write about your Turkish experience, craft journal notes into compelling stories, develop material you’re already working on
• come ready to write, share, learn, and have fun

And Much More…

We’ll begin in the internationally renowned resort of Bodrum and work our way down the Aegean coast and into the Mediterranean. You’ll see turtles nesting, sail past and hike among ancient ruins, visit Turkish villages, natural hot springs and a mud bath, explore inner waterways and learn to write and get published. All while reveling in a classic Blue Voyage of legend. Turkey is a beautiful country, and Turks ooze with hospitality. Don’t miss this chance of a lifetime!

WHAT PREVIOUS WORKSHOP PARTICIPANTS HAVE TO SAY:

“In the eye of the Aegean, with billowing sails as a backdrop, my writing found its new course - winged and unbridled. Robin Sparks’ writing seminar was heady and filled with heart. Aboard our gulet, our senses were heightened by the smells and tastes of great food and wine and through listening to the touching words penned by fellow travelers - a once-in-a-lifetime journey heightened by the vision of a seasoned teacher, Larry Habegger, who brought out the best in each of us.” -Connie Collins, Journalist

“When I first caught sight of our gulet, docked in a small bay protected by hills with the turquoise Mediterranean Sea gleaming in the background, it took my breath away. One minute I was sitting with a wonderful group of people, laughing, talking about our lives, about writing, and the next, diving off a classic Turkish gulet into the warm turquoise water below, and the next hiking past 9,000-year-old ruins. Larry, our writing writing teacher, was positively inspirational. And I learned so much from the other students. Sign me up!” —Michelle Babcock

Price: $2500 USD
Includes:

• two hours instruction per day and private consultations with travel writer and co-editor of Travelers’ Tales Books, Larry Habegger
• three delicious meals per day and all drinks
• all land and water excursions
• use of all onboard water toys and equipment, including fishing rods
• full use of a luxurious classic Turkish yacht shared with a maximum of 12 students, your teacher and 3 Turkish crew members
• shared accommodation in a large air-conditioned double cabin with a private bath
• three Turkish crew members to make sure that the only work you do is write and play
• airport transfers
• and last but not least, laughter, exploration and camaraderie galore

The price does not include round trip airfare to Bodrum, Turkey from whence we will depart on our boat on Saturday, September 20, 2008. We have scheduled the workshop during the travel “shoulder season” so that students may benefit from lower airfares. If you would like assistance booking an airline ticket, please email workshop organizer, Robin Sparks at robin@robinsparks.com.

This is a small intimate class of no more than 12, so don’t delay. Reserve your spot by sending your first installment of $625 via PayPal.com to Robin@Robinsparks.com. Full payment is due by June 1, 2008. Please purchase travel insurance as we are unable to issue refunds unless we can fill your spot.

This workshop is brought to you by OneWorld Ltd, a Turkish company whose mission is to act as a conduit between the West and Middle East. Founder Robin Sparks says, “When we touch the soul of a place with our senses, when we live among its people, we cannot help but realize that although we are fantastically different, we are at our cores, very much the same.” OneWorld offers not only workshops, but travel accommodations in real homes in real neighborhoods in Istanbul, Turkey and around the world. For more information about this workshop or others contact Robin Sparks at Robin@Robinsparks.com. OneWorld reserves the right to cancel the workshop if less than 8 students enroll by June 1, 2008. In this case, all paricipants will be issued full refunds.

See the full documents at these links in PDF and Word formats (the Word doc is the easiest to read and highest resolution photos; the PDF Formatting and photos may be slightly altered).

• Word doc: Learn How to Craft A Travel Article, Write a Memoir and Publish Your Book (Word)
• PDF: Learn How to Craft A Travel Article, Write a Memoir and Publish Your Book (PDF)

I’ve got some major tales to catch us up!

Best of all, I think I’ve found IT. Home. In the most unlikely, or the not so unlikely of places. At the center. In the first country I came to after abruptly leaving the old tribe 10 years ago. My new home is perhaps not so surprisingly, geopolitically smack dab in the middle of the undeclared West vs. Middleeastern war. That’s right. I’m in the middle where I most like to be. I’m in Istanbul, Turkey and it rocks.

But let’s get started connecting the dots to how I got here. Come along!

Robin

India has beckoned me for years, especially Kerala. With more and more jobs being exported to India every day and with its new role as an emerging world power, India seems destined to be a next best place. I wanted to meet the Americans and Europeans who are moving to India, to get a glimpse of what their lives are like.

Bali - On this island I’d felt so at home during my five months there, that I left some money in a bank account and a box of personal effects with a friend. How is it that three years later, I’ve yet to return? There have been things like bombs that went off in the night. And the sticky web of time and commitments in the States. But maybe its just that at some level, I fear that I will discover that, Yes, Bali is home. Which means taking the final (or first?) step and going.

On January 30: A week before my planned departure, I received a call from EscapeArtist.com. They were hatching a new online travel magazine and wanted to know if I’d be interested in wearing an editor’s hat.

And so, one week before departure date, I aked my travel agent to re-route my trip to Argentina.

Two months later, March 26, 2006 - I began my stay in Argentina last month on a 75-acre farm in the wine and orchard region of Mendoza.

Today I am sitting in my lovely apartment in Buenos Aires, Argentina finishing what will be the first issue of EscapeArtist Travel Magazine.

There have been rabbit trails, oh yes. Like the emergency appendectomy I had in a rural hospital, followed by a move to Buenos Aires, and a trip to Uruguay for an international real estate conference. I’ll tell you all about it in EscapeArtist Travel Magazine, www.escapeartist.com.

See you in Turkey June 3 for the experience of a lifetime!!! Sign up now!

PDF: The Personal Travel Story (Turkey, June 3-10, 2006)

–the quote is from C.S. Lewis, author of
“The Chronicles of Narnia”.

A HOME AT THE END OF THE WORLD is about how loved ones enter and exit our lives not always on schedule. It re-examines the definition of family, of friends, and lovers. And finally, it argues that home isn’t so much about the Where as about the Who. A Home at the End of the World reinforces what I was beginning to suspect, that Home is People, Community and Love. (All in a warm place of course!)

Why have I moved from checking the pulse of Asia to revisiting South America? And why Brazil?

Brazil is categorized in investing circles as a developing country. Which means it’s a poor country with lousy infrastructure and unfathomable corruption OR it is a country overflowing with natural resources and on its way to becoming a first world country.

Brazil is both, the former being a legacy of its past, and the latter its growing reality. From developing country to an emerging one. While America has focused post 9-11 on security and imperializing Iraq, Brazil has been busy setting up a partnership with China – one based on supplying the world’s growing super power with raw materials.

Why should Americans consider moving to Brazil?

Europeans rediscovered Brazil and have been moving and investing there in droves, most noticeably over the past five years. In fact, so many Portuguese have bought up Northeast Brazilian land lately, that lawmakers in Brasilia are trying to pass laws limiting the amount of Brazilian land that can be purchased by the former colonizers.

In Brazil I repeatedly met with surprise when people learned that I was American. So few Americans visit Brazil, much less live there. Yet, certain regions are filled with French, others with Portuguese., and although I didn’t make it there, Southern Brazil is full up with Germans.

Sixty-nine percent of North America’s population is between the ages of 40 and 59. That’s a lot of aging baby boomers who are or will soon be concluding that their dream of owning a home is a pipedream. And that they’re going to have to continue working like indentured servants just to stay even.

There is hope though, that by moving across the U.S. border, an American’s financial picture can brighten considerably. Not only can one buy a house, but they’ll have access to quality health care, delicious fresh food, clothing, a warm, laid-back environment – and still have money left over to squirrel away in savings! The cost of living in America has soared, while the benefits of being an American dwindled.

I’m betting that American zenophobia will have dissipated within the next five years - after most of America’s corporations have taken many of their (American) employees with them. As anyone who reads or watches the news knows, this process is well underway.

While immigrants chasing the American dream will continue to stream across North America’s borders, I believe that aging Americans who have tired of the game, not to mention gone broke, will head South. Younger ones will follow as business opportunities and a better life beckon them.

Case in point: Huge numbers of retirees travel regularly over our northern and southern borders to buy medications, to have dental work done, to have surgery, to buy second homes. How long will it be until they decide it’s cheaper and easier just to move acrossthe border? And how about the number of major corporations moving to foreign countries, and the jobs opening in those countries. How long will it take young Americans to realize that an American salary goes 10 times further in a foreign country?

Planned foreign communities are popping up in exotic locations. Foreign banks are beginning to offer mortgage financing abroad. And hey, consider the sheer numbers of expatriates who have already retired to Mexico and Costa Rica.

The mass migration has not only begun, it is in full swing. “Go west young man!” has become “Go South Old Man.”

I am back in Brazil to meet the expatriates who have already arrived. To get a feel for the land, the community, the culture, the politics, the economy, and ultimately to find out if Brazil is a place where I’d be willing to tie up my horse.

My gypsy soul rules my roost - home is here, it is there, it is everywhere! I really do need a base, or so I think sometimes, and so I am told nearly all of the time.And so I continue to look for community, and a place where I can live comfortably doing work I love. (Or at least leave my stuff while I’m gone.) Maybe I should consider hard core journalism…being on the scene to report what’s happening behind the scenes at the planet’s latest disaster. Maybe not. Working for a non-profit? Perhaps. But non-profits as far as I can tell, are in serious need of good business managers and an army of organizers, not more story tellers.

(more…)

I took my Apple to the new highly touted Mac Spa in San Francisco. When I picked it up the night before leaving for Brazizl, my Mac G4 had received a new brain called Tiger. I added lots of new and improved memory, and a mic so that with Garage Band, it could function not only as my secretary, but as my traveling sound studio.

My Mac had received a new iLife!

Brazil bound and ready to blog!. There´s more than one way to tell a story I´ve been heard to say (a lot) lately.

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