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The Travel Essay that Started My Career

I’ve been asked a lot lately how I became a travel writer. The answer is, by accident. But it was this story – about a woman I met in Moscow, a memoir from the Cold War – that launched my career. I submitted it everywhere (and I mean everywhere – one fancy editor said, “There’s not enough […]

Interview with author Rolf Potts

It’s a thrill to be interviewed by one of the great travel writers, Rolf Potts, author of the iconic book, VAGABONDING. Just doing the interview has made me want to get on a plane. Thanks Rolf!

The Millions

I never thought I’d contribute to the vast canon of writers-on-writing essays, but here is one, called ‘There is No Handbook for This’ that I wrote about second-career writers (like me) for The Millions.

Gold Solas Award

I write about this photo – me long ago in Morocco – in my story ‘Time or the Sahara Wind.’ Scroll down, way down: this essay won a Gold Solas Award for travel memoir – my favorite category, in fact. It’s an honor. I’d like to thank…….Travelers’ Tales/Solas House for keeping the travel essay alive, thriving […]

Travel Books for Everyone

This is a list, published on Peter Greenberg (CBS and PBS’s Travel Detective) of recommended travel books. It’s great for 100 Places in France to be in such high-powered and talented company. The roster was compiled by the amazing people at Traveler’s Bookcase in Los Angeles.

Video of a Reading at Book Passage

I don’t get to San Francisco enough, but when I go, I always hope to stop by Book Passage in Corte Madera – and even better, to do an event there. My friend, the lovely writer Lisa Alpine, hosts a series and in June 2015, I did a reading with my great friends and colleagues Lavinia Spalding and Candace Rose Rardon. […]

Essay for BBC Travel wins 2015 Lowell Thomas Award for Personal Comment

Very pleased that my essay about the unexpected pleasure of traveling through France alone has won a Lowell Thomas Award for personal comment. I’m in great company: Here is a list of the winners, and here, again, is my story. And this is what the judges said: Marcia DeSanctis’ strong, first-person narrative captures what one is supposed to […]

The Summer is Over, Let Life Begin

Thirteen years ago, my family and I pulled up stakes and relocated from New York City to our country house in a part of rural Connecticut that swells with city people (like we were) in the summertime. At first, I struggled mightily as I transitioned from urbanite to full time forest dweller in what had […]

Discussion with Don George at Corner Bookstore in NYC

He was my editor and now he’s my friend, too. I’ll be interviewing the great Don George at Corner Bookstore on Madison and 94th St, at 6 pm Friday September 11. The occasion is the release of his lovely book, The Way of Wanderlust.

This Travel Story is about Staying Home

May 2015       The artistry in travel writing is in how deftly one can dance between two seemingly disparate things. We must disappear into our new surroundings while maintaining the detachment that is required of the observer. Travel writing is about immersion, but it is also about being a stranger and an outsider. […]

Tin House

This is some of the most fun I’ve ever had: an essay written and inspired by objects hidden in my own library. Wisely, I asked my friend and neighbor Kate Uhry to take the photos. A story on travel, memory and books and how they all come together in a bookmark, for Tin House.

June 10 at Stanford University Bookstore

It’s been a long time since I’ve been to Palo Alto, and it was a warm, intimate evening. Plus, the Stickley chairs in the speaker’s area were divine.

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