SPECIALITIES
WRITINGS
PICTURES
AWARDS
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Bitten
by the travelling bug in my early teens, I had travelled extensively
before turning from academic writing to travel-writing. I have been a
full-time travel writer now for nearly 20 years and I am still excited
by trips on trains, ‘planes and bikes. I regularly contribute to UK and
overseas newspapers and magazines and I spend two months of the year in
my favourite country, Thailand, which is like a second home.
Destination pieces, anecdotal travel, humour, and food and drink, have
all been covered in my writing, as well as articles about wood-carvers.
I have made something of a speciality of this as I find that there is a
wood-carver in every town and village willing to be interviewed and
photographed. I even found a brilliant marine wood-carver in San Diego.
. . . . .
Exotic
travels have taken me to Fiji, Samoa, and Tonga, but nowadays I am
happiest touring S.E. Asia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Taiwan and Malaysia, from
my base in Hua Hin, Thailand. While in Thailand I get around the islands
by boat and tour up-country by bus and car. I love spending time near
the Burmese border on one of the Floatels moored on the Kwai Noi, my
mornings spent watching the water-buffalo and their families swim
upstream, my evenings watching the elephants come down to bathe in the
waters.
My other interests have taken me Jazzin’ in New Orleans, and checking
out naturist hotels in Palm Springs and I was the spa correspondent for
TRIP magazine. I also run workshops and give talks on writing, and
directed a course in travel writing in the superb Los Pueblos Blancos
area of Spain. For details, email me..
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SPECIALIST TOPICS
- S.E. Asia (especially Thailand)
- Italy (especially Sicily, Verona, Florence)
- Spain (especially Cordoba, Malaga, Granada, Seville)
- N. Ireland – the province
- S.E. England – especially Isle of Wight.
I live on the Isle of Wight so I am very familiar with everything
along the S.E. Coast, but although on an island I can be in London
in just over two hours by fast train and catamaran.
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WRITINGS
I have a major input
into the The Island Visitor each year, the guide to the Isle of
Wight supplied to visitors, and I have published articles in the
Daily Express, The Times, The Herald, The Scotsman, BBC History,
Wanderlust, Christian Herald, Living Abroad, Wood-Carving,
Victorian Homes (USA), Peak (Singapore) and the inflight magazines
of all the major airlines, supplying photographs to illustrate my
text. I have also written for various websites, I write
mini-guides, the most recent being on Fuerteventura for Time
Out and update main guides to cities and countries, such as
Dorling Kindersley Eyewitness Andalucia.
Most recent articles have been on Windsor, Dubai, the Motor Museum
in the New Forest, a trip in the footsteps of the Impressionists
in France, a Week End in Winchester, Chinese New Year, and a
history of the Christmas card, and I have contributed copy on
Dubai, Brittany, and the UK to the new World Guide to the Best
Holistic Spas due from Footprint in Spring 2007.
EXAMPLES OF PUBLISHED WORK
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PICTURES
Most of my work is
illustrated with my own photographs and I have a good library of
slides from past trips and digital images from more recent
journeys. I can provide pictures on CD, DVD or email as low-res or
high-res images.
PHOTOGRAPHY SELECTION
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AWARDS
Travelex Award - runner-up for a feature on the Isle of
Wight.
Lady Violet Astor Award for best published journalism
- for an article on cricket in Samoa.
Wight Writers Award - won three years running for best feature
article.
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BY MARI
NICHOLSON -
EXAMPLES OF PUBLISHED WORK
Jazzin’ in The Big
Easy
The
piercingly sweet trumpet is soloing on Oh Didn’t he Ramble
and I’m ‘second lining’ up North Rampart Street in New Orleans on
a Sunday afternoon behind the best jazz bands in town. Crowds pour
out of Armstrong Park where they’ve been waiting in the sweltering
heat since early morning for the parade to begin, and I’m lifted
bodily off the ground as we move off.
“Hey babe, you ain’t got no beads” and a big Mama drapes a dozen strings
of green, gold and purple necklaces around me. I am
underdressed. Electric blue suits, scarlet jackets, and leopard skin hats mark the sharpest dressers in the parade. That’s just
the men.
Read full article
...
(first published: Trip Magazine)
The Kuomintang in
Thailand
Towering mountains and craggy limestone peaks loom out of the
early morning mist, elephants haul teak on river banks, and
families drift up and down the rivers on their bamboo rafts. The
essence of Northern Thailand is its breathtaking scenery - and its
mountain people.
The area between Chiang Rai and Mae Hong Son is hill tribe country, a
long chain of semi-connected Akha, Lahu, Hmong and Yeo villages
that exist with one foot in the iron age and the other in the
world of satellite TV. Politically, their existence is fraught
with tension.
Read full article
...
(first published: The Peak)
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CONTACT
ME
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EXAMPLES OF
PUBLISHED WORK
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PHOTOGRAPHY
SELECTION
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