Food & Travel Writer - Canada & Worldwide

Tell us more about your work as a travel/food writer.

I’ve been working as a professional writer – getting paid for it – for 20 years. I first started out writing food articles, publishing with a very small weekly newspaper in Edmonton. For four years, I built up my publication portfolio, then in 2000, I quit my day job and started writing full-time. I’ve since written for the National Post, Canadian Geographic, NUVO Magazine, Maclean’s, Enroute, WestJet Magazine, and Canadian Living. I’ve also had two books published, Food and the City: Urban Agriculture and The New Food Revolution (2012), and Food Artisans of the Okanagan: Your Guide to Locally Crafted Fare (2016).

How has your writing taken you around the world?

With Food and the City, I didn’t set out for it to become a globetrotting book, but it became just that. I was interested in the idea of urban agriculture and I knew I would have to expand beyond Edmonton. We are involved in a global food system, exporting and importing food from different continents. In terms of urban agriculture, I sensed that local reactions to the industrial food industry would be happening everywhere. Sure enough, I found interesting urban agriculture examples around the world. I travelled to Paris, London, Bristol, Chicago, Cuba, and Toronto to document stories for Food and the City. I was able to show how different cities around the world were taking unique approaches to local food security.

Currently, I’m working on my third book, which is taking me all over the world. I was recently in Norway looking at the Global Seed Vault, the multinational seed vault that’s up in the high Norwegian arctic. I’ve learned that there’s a huge amount of money being spent by nations, governments, and groups of scientists who are deeply concerned about the loss of biodiversity in our food system. There are currently 1750 official seed banks around the world. I find the topic of global seed supplies, biodiversity, and seed saving just fascinating. For my book research, I’ve visited seed banks in St. Petersburg, Russia, Seoul, Korea, Texcoco (just outside of Mexico City), Svalbard, Norway, and just outside of Gatwick, U.K.

How did you end up here? Please tell us about your career trajectory – what skills and experiences contribute to your success as a writer?

Academically, I always performed well in the liberal arts and social sciences. I completed a degree at the University of Alberta in French literature and translation. I had planned to go on to finish a Master’s and work in literary translation. But I quickly realized that it wasn’t suited to my personality, and furthermore, there were few job prospects in Edmonton. So, as many people do, I took whatever jobs I could get to pay down my student loans. I worked for a team of chefs who participated in international culinary competitions for a couple of years. I accompanied them to a big culinary competition in Berlin in 1996, and wrote about the experience – it was my first food culture article! I loved it. Then, I worked in restaurants afterward and immersed myself in professional culinary culture. The whole time, I kept getting asked to write articles about food. Aside from that, I had a strong upbringing in food culture: cooking from scratch, preserving, canning, and gardening. Over time, I developed a strong base in food writing.

As a writer, I pushed myself to write for bigger and better publications, and to take on ambitious projects like writing a book. That’s just what you have to do. Nobody is going to say to you: ‘You should write a book – and here’s the money to do it.’ Instead, you have to invest years of your time and a considerable amount of your own money. Then you get a publishing deal, write the book, publish – and you still don’t make any money! So you have to do other things to keep yourself afloat.

What do you love most about travel and food culture writing?

I love meeting interesting people. I love languages – I speak French, passable Spanish, and a little bit of German. I really enjoy being in that multilingual atmosphere. I’ve found that food is such a great way to connect with people. Food breaks down cultural barriers, so you don’t have to look the same, or live in the same geographical location, or have the same religion and upbringing. Everyone can connect over food. To me, it’s such a high when I meet someone new and we both share a passion for food. That’s what I love about being a food culture writer.

What are some of the challenges you encounter in your work as a travel and food culture writer?

Every day there’s a challenge. First, there are legal issues when writing about people. You need to have their consent. It’s challenging to meet someone and immediately ask them: ‘Are you okay with me recording this conversation? And me using your name in print? And me taking your picture? Do you trust me to tell your story?’ When I was working on my first book, I didn’t take “release forms” quite as seriously as I should have. My publisher required, however, that I track down every single person I’d interviewed – some whom I’d just met on the street and chatted informally with. It was horrendous trying to track everyone down. Today, I carry around release forms.

Logistically speaking, travel is very expensive. I’m not yet at the level where publishers give me large advances to cover my expenses, so I have to get creative about how I get to places. Often, it’s a vacation in a destination that I wouldn’t normally go to.

I’m usually pretty good about connecting with people. Sometimes you do interview people and the content is flat and you find it doesn’t fit with your larger narrative – you can’t use it – yet you’ve invested a couple of days, even weeks. You have to learn to let that go. Also, I’ve learned that people don’t always like what you write about them – even if it’s really complimentary, in your opinion.

What skills and abilities have helped you succeed as a travel writer?

I often joke that I’m not a good writer, but I am extremely stubborn and persistent. It can take me a long time to write something that I’m happy with. I do multiple drafts – at least 7 to 8 drafts of an article – where I’m sometimes even re-writing it. With Food and the City, I wrote 15 drafts of the book. Writing the first draft is the easy part. It’s the re-writing and tweaking that takes months. It’s eight hours a day, for months on end. It’s a marathon. It’s an absolutely gruelling physical and mental marathon. But if you don’t do it, you live with published work that has errors, or poor writing choices. When people tell me, ‘You must write quickly,’ I’m happy – but they have no idea how much goes into drafting, editing, and re-writing.

In a world of digital publication, are the doors wide open to aspiring writers?

There’s no designation that you can apply for in order to become a professional writer. There are zero barriers to entry. Anyone can start a blog. There are some excellent writers who only work in electronic, unedited media. Even if you have an Instagram account, technically speaking, you’re a social media influencer. But the problem is, there’s so much content out there, it’s hard to get noticed and get paid. There’s very little money to be made in literary writing. In commercial writing, yes, you can make money. You can write corporate reports, or be a wordsmith for businesses and institutions. But as a literary travel writer, it’s difficult – and frankly, it’s always been difficult. It’s kind of a marginal industry. That’s why you see many privileged, upper class people who can be writers full-time because they have the economic means to be a writer. That worries me. I think there’s a lack of diversity in writing. I understand why that is, because it’s not something you can pay the rent with. You have to have other advantages. I would love to see that change.

Personally, blogging isn’t the right medium for me. I’ve become a better writer by working with editors at magazines and publishing houses. Today, with digital publishing, it’s sort of become ‘every woman for herself’ on the Wild, Wild West blogging frontier. It’s a shame because many writers don’t get the benefit of collaborating with good editors.

Do you think having a specific degree or type education is important or relevant to getting work as a writer?

Definitely. As a writer, I draw upon my arts degree daily. It’s the basis of my ability to communicate effectively. You must have a handle on grammar and know how to tell a story. From understanding Shakespeare allusions, to history and mythology, I think that having a general arts background is highly valuable for a writer. A good university education provides you with the ability to think critically and independently, and to form your own opinions – and defend them.

When magazine editors receive thousands of story queries (ideas) a day, what’s your best advice for aspiring writers on how to stand out from the crowd?

Know the difference between a story and a topic. A topic is food, or travel. You might say, ‘I want to be a travel writer. I want to write about Ireland.’ But what’s your story? That’s what editors are always looking for – a story. The story must advance from A to B; there’s narrative tension; you have to be a storyteller, otherwise you’re just talking about a subject. If you’re interested in the subject of Ireland and food, you could consider pitching a story about a particular chef who is reinventing Irish cuisine with seaweed. There’s potential for a story there. My colleagues who are editors look at thousands of pitches with no story to them. It’s just happiness and sunshine from the first paragraph to the last – and that’s flat, frankly.

Also, don’t try to be too dazzling in your writing. That’s a common mistake that emerging writers often make. You need to communicate the story, not simply showcase your writing. The writing is just the grease that gets the story from the page into the brain of the reader. Don’t get distracted by flowery descriptions, or overt crafting. Just strip it down to the base story.

What are some tangible steps that aspiring travel writers can take?

Follow your passion, or area of interest that isn’t writing. Writing is just a means of communication. But what are you communicating? You need to have something to tell people, or something to contribute to a particular conversation. For example, if you’re really interested in geography, become a geographer, and then take a few writing courses so you can talk about geography in a way that is engaging and lively. This gives you the toolkit to talk about your topic. What are you going to write about? What are you going to teach somebody? How are you going to add to the conversation? There’s the artistic impulse to create art – but what are you trying to tell people with your art? Go out into the world and get some experience. It’s important to have a secondary skillset as a writer, so you can write confidently about your subject.