PICTURES I take photos for many of my own guidebooks and travel pieces. My work has appeared in The Times, The Express, Wanderlust, CNN Traveller, Time Out and many other publications. As well as illustrating my own guidebooks, my pictures have been used in other guides, for example the front cover of the Bradt Guide to Lithuania. PHOTOGRAPHY SELECTION                                                                                                ^

 

BOOKS My guidebooks have been published by the AA, Thomas Cook, Dorling Kindersley, Moon Travel Handbooks and Insight Guides, on destinations including Tunisia, the Dominican Republic, Ibiza and Dublin. My first guidebook was to the Yorkshire Dales for Hodder Headline/Telegraph Books in 1993. Despite being a Lancastrian, work is work and I was delighted to do it. Since then I have written another guide to the Dales for the AA, and co-written a guide to the Lake District for them too. My Greek guides include Essential Mainland Greece, Essential Athens and Essential Greek Islands, all for the AA, the Globetrotter Guide to Corfu (New Holland), the National Geographic Traveler Guide to Greece (National Geographic) and major contributions to Eyewitness Greek Mainland and Eyewitness Greek Islands for Dorling Kindersley. Paris is another place I know well. My first guide was Discover Paris for Thomas Cook/WHSmith, published in the USA as Must-See Paris by Globe-Pequot and winner of a Benjamin Franklin Award.  I then wrote the Paris title in the Time for Food series for Thomas Cook (along with Venice and Amsterdam), and with Donna Dailey wrote Dorling Kindersley's Top Ten Paris guide. I have contributed sections on restaurants, hotels, museums, galleries, theatres and cinemas to the Moon Metro Guide to Paris. I have also recently written a literary history of Paris and the text for a coffee table book of photographs by the AA. Among my most recent titles are Essential Spiral Athens (AA, 2008) Official Travel Guide to the Rugby World Cup (main author, Purple Guides, 2007) Globetrotter Guide to Corfu (New Holland, new edition 2007) Top Ten Guide to Paris (co-author, Dorling Kindersley, new edition 2007) National Geographic Traveler Guide to Greece (National Geographic, new edition 2007) Spiral Guide Corfu (AA Publishing, 2005). Colours of Paris (AA Publishing, 2005) Going Underground Paris (Navigator Guides, 2005) Bloom's Literary Places: Paris (Chelsea House Publishing, 2004) Spiral Guide Crete (AA, 2003 and updated 2004) The Leisure Guide to Yorkshire Dales (AA, 1999-2003) The Leisure Guide to Lake District (co-author, AA, 1999-2003) In Your Pocket Guide to Tunis (Michelin, 2002) Insight Pocket Guide to Dublin (Apa Publications, 2002) Time for Food Guides to Paris, Venice and Amsterdam (Thomas Cook, 2001) I also contributed to the following recent titles Eyewitness Tunisia (Editorial Consultant, Dorling Kindersley, 2005) Key Guide to Britain (AA Publishing, 2004) Key Guide to Ireland (AA Publishing, 2004) Moon Metro Guide to Paris (Moon Publications, 2002) And updated the following books Globetrotter Guide to Tunisia (Globetrotter, 2005) Pocket Guide to Tunisia (Berlitz, 2003) Explorer Greek Islands (AA, 2003)                                                                                                ^

 

AWARDS I have won several awards for writing and photography: A Travelex Award for a feature on Yangshuo in China, published in Time Out; An award from the British Guild of Travel Writers for a feature about a taxi tour of Belfast, published in The Independent on Sunday; Two Awards for Excellence from the Outdoor Writers' Guild, one for a feature on Madeira in The Independent on Sunday, the other for photojournalism for an illustrated feature about self-sufficiency in Ireland published in The European; A Benjamin Franklin Award from the Publishers Association in the USA, for a guide to Paris.                                                                                                ^

 

SPECIALITIES Greece (especially Crete and Athens); Paris and the South of France; Amsterdam, Venice, Jamaica; Tunisia; food and drink; Ireland; USA (south and southwest); guidebooks.                                                                                                ^

 

TO CONTACT ME I live mostly in Cambridgeshire with my wife and fellow travel writer Donna Dailey, though we also have a home in Arizona where we go for a few months at a time. I can always be contacted by email.                                                                                                ^

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BY MIKE GERRARD - EXAMPLES OF PUBLISHED WORK Seeing stars in Mississippi A friend of mine was driving on the back roads of Mississippi recently, heading for Elvis’s birthplace at Tupelo. She got lost and stopped to ask directions at a gas station. The owner was having trouble with her English accent, so he went inside to get his buddy. The buddy came out. It was Clint Eastwood. ... Read full article On the Watercress Trail "'Ere's yer salory and watercreases!" That, according to Peter Ackroyd's London, is what the street sellers of the capital used to cry when watercress was the medieval version of fast food, sold in bunches for people to nibble as they walked along. What spinach was to Popeye, watercress was to soldiers in ancient Greece where the general Xenophon used to feed it to his soldiers as a tonic. The herbalist Culpepper reckoned it was good for cleansing the blood, and Liz Hurley says she has six bowls of watercress soup a day to help keep her looks. ... Read full article A Passion for Pétanque To most people pétanque is just a load of boules, a game you see Frenchmen play on bumpy bone-dry pitches, usually with a glass of pastis not far away. In fact some 17 million French people (men and women) play pétanque, particularly in Provence where it was invented 100 years ago this year, in a village called La Ciotat near Marseille. ... Read full article                                                                                                ^