Jeremy is writer and freelance environmental journalist, who also happens to cohabitate with mental illnesses. He has named his OCD Steve and his depression goes by the name of Malachi. He is the author of the memoir Baggage: Confessions of a Globetrotting Hypochondriac.

As a journalist, Jeremy is passionate about wildlife conservation, climate change, forests, animal behavior, and indigenous people and many other topics. His work has appeared in Mongabay, the Guardian, HuffPost, Ensia, YaleE360, Sydney Morning Herald and others. His story on the Sumatran rhino was chosen for the 2019 edition of the Best American Science and Nature Writing.

Jeremy has traveled to over 30 countries on five continents and considers himself ridiculously lucky to have spent time with singing rhinos, dinosaur mammals, and angry clown fish. He is graduate of Macalester College with a major in English and minor in History as well as the Great Books Master’s Degree program at St. John’s College. He lives in St. Paul, Minnesota with his wife, daughter, and pooch. When he’s not writing, he enjoys time with friends, cups of tea, long hikes, longer naps, even longer novels, and playing Dungeons and Dragons.

In this episode Jeremy and I discuss:

• How he juggled writing about travel, mental illness, and nature in one book.
• Why he chose to write his memoir thematically as opposed to chronologically.
• What myths he hoped to dispel by writing so openly about his mental illness.

Plus, his #1 tip for writers.

About Jeremy Hance

Jeremy Hance is writer and freelance environmental journalist, who also happens to cohabitate with mental illnesses. He has named his OCD Steve and his depression goes by the name of Malachi. He is the author of the memoir Baggage: Confessions of a Globetrotting Hypochondriac. As a journalist, Hance cut his teeth at Mongabay, beginning in 2009 and working as a lead writer and editor for six years. For over three years he wrote the blog Radical Conservation on the Guardian. Today, he is a columnist for Mongabay, writing monthly articles under the banner Saving Life on Earth: Words on the Wild.

As a journalist he is passionate about wildlife conservation, climate change, forests, animal behavior, and indigenous people and many other topics. His works has appeared in Mongabay, the Guardian, HuffPost, Ensia, YaleE360, Sydney Morning Herald among others. A story on the Sumatran rhino was chosen for the 2019 edition of the Best American Science and Nature Writing.

In pursuit of stories, Hance has traveled to over 30 countries on five continents. He considers himself ridiculously lucked to have spent time with singing rhinos, dinosaur mammals, and angry clown fish.

Hance is a 2002 graduate of Macalester College with a major in English and minor in History as well as a 2009 graduate of St. John’s College’s Great Books Master’s Degree program. He lives in St. Paul, Minnesota with his wife, daughter, and pooch. When not writing, he enjoys time with friends, cups of tea, long hikes, longer naps, even longer novels, and playing Dungeons and Dragons.

You can follow Jeremy on Twitter.

Baggage: Confessions of a Globe-Trotting Hypochondriac

An award-winning journalist’s eco-adventures across the globe with his three traveling companions: his fiancée, his OCD, and his chronic anxiety—a hilarious, wild jaunt that will inspire travelers, environmentalists, and anyone with mental illness.

Most travel narratives are written by superb travelers: people who crave adventure, laugh in the face of danger, and rapidly integrate into foreign cultures. But what about someone who is paranoid about traveler’s diarrhea, incapable of speaking a foreign tongue, and hates not only flying but driving, cycling, motor-biking, and sometimes walking in the full sun?

In Baggage: Confessions of a Globe-Trotting Hypochondriac, award-winning writer Jeremy Hance chronicles his hilarious and inspiring adventures as he reconciles his traveling career as an environmental journalist with his severe OCD and anxiety.

At the age of twenty-six—after months of visiting doctors, convinced he was dying from whatever disease his brain dreamed up the night before—Hance was diagnosed with OCD. The good news was that he wasn’t dying; the bad news was that OCD made him a really bad traveler—sometimes just making it to baggage claim was a win.

Yet Hance hauls his baggage from the airport and beyond. He takes readers on an armchair trek to some of the most remote corners of the world, from Kenya, where hippos clip the grass and baboons steal film, to Borneo, where macaques raid balconies and the last male Bornean rhino sings, to Guyana, where bats dive-bomb his head as he eats dinner with his partner and flesh-eating ants hide in their pants and their drunk guide leaves them stranded in the rainforest canopy.

As he and his partner soldier through the highs and the lows—of altitudes and their relationship—Hance discovers the importance of resilience, the many ways to manage (or not!) mental illness when in stressful situations, how nature can improve your mental health, and why it is so important to push yourself to live a life packed with experiences, even if you struggle daily with a mental health issue.

With mental illness impacting the lives of millions of people, this timely book will inspire people to step out of their comfort zones and take the road meant to be traveled. Hance proves that we all have baggage–the question is, do we leave it dusty in a closet or do we take it out in full view for others to see?

If you decide to check out the book, we hope you’ll do so via this Amazon affiliate link, where if you choose to purchase via the link DIY MFA gets a referral fee at no cost to you. As always, thank you for supporting DIY MFA!

(Right-click to download.)

If you liked this episode…

Head over to iTunes, Stitcher Radio, Spotify, or Google and subscribe so you’ll be first to know when new episodes are available.

Also, remember that sharing is caring so if you know anyone who might enjoy this podcast, please tell them about it or leave us a review so other listeners will want to check it out.

Until next week, keep writing and keep being awesome!

The post Episode 349: When a Story Idea Won’t Let a Writer Go – Interview with Jeremy Hance appeared first on DIY MFA.

1) Use your senses

When creating a compelling setting, one piece of advice we hear over and over is to use all five senses to immerse the reader – don’t only describe  what the main character sees, but also smells, feels on her skin, hears. Can you think of a time when you traveled and were surprised by the noise of a city, the humidity of a jungle, the smell of the pollution? Regardless of where your story is set, use that memory to think about your world and what your character would be experiencing. When I came back to Washington, D.C., after two weeks in Kinshasa, DRC, I rolled down the window on the way back from the airport and reveled in the clean air (and the stickiness of the humidity, because July in D.C.). I didn’t realize how much I took pollution-free air for granted until I started traveling to huge world cities that sit under a constant haze of smog. Now, no matter where I travel, I think about the air quality, what that says about my eventual setting, and how my character would react to it.

2) Pay attention in the car (or plane, or…)

Writers love airports. They’re perfect for people watching – you and hundreds of other people are stuck with nothing to do, you may as well get some character ideas while you’re waiting. But what about once you’re on the plane? What if, instead of watching whatever superhero movie comes up, you look out the window? Or, instead of getting lost in a book, you watch the scenery on a road trip? You might find that the sight of flying over the Grand Canyon takes your breath away and gives you an idea for the topography of a world in your latest sci-fi short story. I was once driving into rural Virginia and noticed that many farmhouses had their own small gravesites along the edge of their yards. I couldn’t get that detail out of my head – how many generations were buried there? What is a graveside service like when it’s in someone’s yard? How annoying would it be to be haunted by your own mother? An entire series of short stories grew from that one detail. Pay attention – you never know when inspiration is going to strike.

3) What’s different?

Have you ever happened upon a place or a sight and just stopped still with your mouth hanging open? What struck you? Was it the old women sitting in the park plucking each other’s white hairs (Hanoi, Vietnam)? Was it the way that the streets kept turning at right angles and the houses kept getting more brightly colored until you reached the top of a hill and were treated to the most gorgeous view of a city over the bay you’ve ever seen (Lisbon, Portugal)? Was it the way the sun hit the ocean in a way you’ve never quite seen or imagined, even though you’re from California and have seen an ocean or two in your life (Alexandria, Egypt)? Take a picture, make a note in your phone, and file it away for use later. Then get back to enjoying yourself.

4) What’s the same?

I believe that we as humans have more in common than we think. Everywhere I go, familiar sights make me smile. Teenagers on a big bridge crossing the Nile are still teenagers – they’re still goofing off for their friends and posing for pictures to post on social media. Bars in Ho Chi Minh City are full of men smoking cigarettes, drinking coffee, and decompressing after work. The vast majority of tourists visiting the iconic sites of India are locals – they want to see the Taj Mahal just as much as Americans do. Find those experiences that are universal, that span culture and language, use them in your story – and you’ll capture the imagination of everyone.

5) You don’t have to go far

We’re all dying to get out of our houses, our towns, our countries and go have some adventures. And we will be able to soon. In the meantime, sometimes all it takes to boost your creativity is to find something new. I began walking my dog further and further away from my house on Saturday mornings until one day I found a trail that took me down through Rock Creek Park, the national park that runs through Washington, D.C. I’d never been on that trail before – being suddenly immersed in forest after spending the last several months in the city was transformative, and the ideas flowed easily when I sat down in front of my computer later that afternoon. Can you walk through a neighborhood you’ve never been to before? Can you drive down a road for no reason other than to see something new? Can you light a new candle, listen to a totally different kind of music, buy a new outfit to spark your senses? You might be surprised what you find.

Marina is a West Coast native living in Washington, DC. She loves writing anything, from sci-fi to creative non-fiction to romance, often drawing inspiration from the frequent travel required by her day job. Her work has appeared in such literary magazines as DistrictLit and Corner Bar Magazine. When she’s not writing, you can find her hosting bar trivia, baking something involving peaches, or bothering her extremely patient dog, Daisy. You can read more of her work at marinabarakatt.com and find pictures of Daisy at twitter.com/marinabarakatt.

The post #5onFri: Five Ways to Use Travel to Inspire Your Writing (Even During Lockdown) appeared first on DIY MFA.

Brad is a novelist, journalist, translator, and former relief worker currently quarantined in rural Peru. His novel To Remain Nameless was a Paris Review staff pick, an SPD recommended new fiction title, has been a small press bestseller since its release. It was named by Dennis Cooper as a Best Book of 2020.

Brad’s stories, essays, and articles have appeared in The New Yorker, Guernica, and the Whitney Biennial and some of his upcoming work will be featured in “From the Deep,” a major exhibition at the Smithsonian Museum of African Art in 2021.

Brad Fox left the US in the late 1990s and began working as a feature writer and television producer in the former Yugoslavia. Since that time, he has worked in various countries around the globe, doing different forms of humanitarian and arts-related work.

In March earlier this year, he left New York for what was meant to be a twelve-day trip to northeastern Peru, with the goal of studying with a traditional medicine practitioner and completing a book on the bathysphere dives — the first eyewitness account of the deep ocean. That twelve-day trip has extended much longer than those original twelve days, and he’s been doing virtual book launch events from a little table on the edge of the jungle, surrounded by monkeys, hummingbirds and poisonous ants.

In this episode Brad and I discuss:

• How his partner’s experiences as a doula inspired many of the characters and the structure of his book To Remain Nameless.
• What voice and POV techniques Brad used to transition between past and present to give his language “energy”.
• Why “writing for no reason” and experimenting in the moment is a large part of Brad’s writing process.

Plus, their #1 tip for writers.

About the Author

Brad Fox is a novelist, journalist, translator, and former relief worker currently quarantined in rural Peru. His novel To Remain Nameless (Rescue Press, 2020) was a Paris Review staff pick, an SPD recommended new fiction title, has been a small press bestseller since its release. It was named by Dennis Cooper as a best book of 2020. His stories, essays, and articles have appeared in The New Yorker, Guernica, and the Whitney Biennial. Upcoming work will be featured in “From the Deep,” a major exhibition at the Smithsonian Museum of African Art in 2021.

Brad left the US in the late 1990s and began working as a feature writer and television producer in the former Yugoslavia. He then began working with refugee populations as a relief contractor, an often brutal education in human nature. In 2004, Brad co-founded Neither/Nor, an illegal space featuring immigrant artists in Berlin. He was working with asylum seekers in Istanbul before he returned to New York in 2011. Since March 2020, Brad has been in northeastern Peru, studying with a traditional medicine practitioner and completing a book on the bathysphere dives — the first eyewitness account of the deep ocean. 

To Remain Nameless

Tess keeps vigil at the bedside of her friend Laura through a long night of labor as Laura’s first child arrives. The two have known each other for what seems like forever. Their humanitarian aid work has taken them from the Balkans, to Egypt, to Istanbul amid the ongoing refugee crisis—an era that includes the US’s war in Iraq, the Arab Spring, and many forms of global consequence and aftermath. Brad Fox’s first novel is a luminous inquiry into the incarnations and limits of hope. This writer helps us endure our questions about what forms care may take, what we may offer to anyone, near and far.

You can find out more about Brad on his website and follow him on Instagram and Twitter. 

If you decide to check out the book, we hope you’ll do so via this Amazon affiliate link, where if you choose to purchase via the link DIY MFA gets a referral fee at no cost to you. As always, thank you for supporting DIY MFA!

Link to Episode 337

(Right-click to download.)

If you liked this episode…

Head over to iTunes, Stitcher Radio or Google and subscribe so you’ll be first to know when new episodes are available.

Also, remember that sharing is caring so if you know anyone who might enjoy this podcast, please tell them about it or leave us a review so other listeners will want to check it out.

Until next week, keep writing and keep being awesome!

The post Episode 337: The Intersection of Voice and Point of View in Literary Fiction – Interview with Brad Fox appeared first on DIY MFA.

But here I am, sharing my mental illness—as well as travel—stories with the public in my new book Baggage: Confessions of a Globe-Trotting Hypochondriac.

Like many writers, I don’t feel like I ever woke up and said, okay I’m going to write this book. Instead, it was the fact that once the idea got in my head, I simply couldn’t shake it off. I tried. God knows, I tried. But the concept stuck like a burr, until it began to form from just an idea into themes, chapters, and scenes. 

Probably, the most difficult thing about writing a memoir around one’s mental illness struggles is the decision to share such things publicly. The decision was not easy for myself nor my wife – and there are still times when I wonder if this really was a good decision – but in the end it just felt right. I increasingly wanted to write about my trips around the world chasing endangered species as an environmental journalist, but I also knew I couldn’t do so honestly without delving pretty deeply into my OCD, extreme anxiety, and even depression. I knew, as the book grew further from a seed into a full-blown tree, complete with branches and arches, that I’d also need to jump back in time and show at least portions of my childhood.

Only I’d do it in my own way. I decided early on I didn’t want to write a book about mental illness that focused solely on the despair and anguish of living with mental illness.  Others have written such important books before and it was, simply put, not the book I had in me. Instead, I wanted to be honest about the struggle of living with chronic mental health problems, but also show more of the humorous side. After all, running around the world with OCD does lead to some ridiculous situations. Laughter is one of the best parts of being human—and, at least for me, a pretty good way to keep the demons at bay.

As I began to write the book, increasingly the theme of resilience began to take shape. How resilience shapes the lives of those who live with mental illness, and what, really, resilience means. It’s not just about doing what’s hard—though that’s part of it—but also recognizing our limits. Since the book also took place across eight countries, and featured any number of endangered species and places, it’s also about the resilience and fragility of our natural world.

Such themes hadn’t coalesced when I imagined the book, but only as I wrote it. The once somewhat discursive episodes of travel began to form together into something more whole, something that spoke to my larger experience on this Earth—both in my personal mental illness and in my career as an environmental journalist—even as much was left behind, unnecessary for this story.

Writing a memoir isn’t really telling the details of one’s life—that’d be unbearably boring even for the most interesting lives (unless you’re Proust—Proust could probably pull it off)—it’s really pulling out the themes, like harvesting the grain and leaving the chaff.

After all a memoir is still a story, and a story is different from life. A memoir should be entirely true, but it’s also told in a way that accentuates whatever themes are most important, and diminishes the rest. It tells a story, and a story—whether true or not—is always about artistic and narrative choices. This does not mean the prosaic should be left on the cutting room floor. The prosaic can be just as telling, just as beautiful as the dramatic, but it should all be chosen with great care.

At the same time, unlike fiction, a memoir reveals the deeply personal, whether it be physical or mental illness, poverty or wealth, grief or gain, suffering or joy. Whether it be about coming-of-age or meeting the end, most of the great memoirs I can think of shine a light on what’s often hidden, exposing the inner workings of our subjective lives, and perhaps saying something about the greater collective of human existence.

These elements—a story built from the select stones of truth—are what make the best memoirs so goddamn compelling.

I never thought I’d write a memoir. And I’m not sure I’ll ever write another. But, like any story that won’t let go, memoirs have a latent power, a power to change and shape our lives.

Jeremy Hance is an environmental journalist and author of Baggage: Confessions of a Globe-Trotting Hypochondriac. For three years, he wrote a popular blog for The Guardian with over two million views. He is also a columnist for Mongabay, one of the most highly respected environmental news sites in the world. He has been interviewed on NPR’s Living on Earth and Sea Change Radio, among others.

The post How I Decided to Write a Memoir about My Hilarious Mental Illness appeared first on DIY MFA.

Mag Dimond has been a world traveler since the age of eleven, when her mother took her to live in Italy. She has traveled extensively in Europe and Central America, and ventured to such exotic landscapes as India, Cambodia, Bhutan, Japan, Kenya, China, Burma, Vietnam, Thailand, and Cuba. In her seventies now, she continues traveling, the most recent adventure being to Machu Picchu and the Amazon jungle.

After a career teaching writing to college students in San Francisco and Taos, she often volunteers as a writing tutor at 826 Valencia, an esteemed literacy program launched by David Eggers. A practicing Buddhist for twenty years, she is a classical pianist, photographer, gourmet cook, animal rescuer, and philanthropist.

Today we’ll be discussing her book Bowing to Elephants, which has been honored by Kirkus Review with a starred review as one of the best Indie memoir/biographies of 2019. Prior to publication, excerpts from Bowing to Elephants appeared in American Literary Review, Travelers Tales Solas Awards, the Tulip Tree “Stories that Must be Told” awards, and the 2017 William Faulkner Wisdom awards. Additionally, she has also published essays in Elephant Journal, a prestigious online magazine with a readership of almost two million people. It is truly an honor to have her here at DIY MFA today.

In this episode Mag and I discuss:

• How journaling can lead to memoir-writing.
• A technique to help writers tap into their memories.
• Why clear thinking is crucial to clear writing. 
• How mindfulness and meditation can be powerful writing tools.

Plus, her #1 tip for writers.

About Mag Dimond

Mag Dimond has been a world traveler since her mother took her to live in Italy from ages eleven to fourteen. She traveled extensively in Europe and Central America, and ventured to such exotic landscapes as India, Cambodia, Bhutan, Japan, Kenya, China, Burma, Vietnam, Thailand, and Cuba. In her seventies now, she continues traveling, the most recent adventure being to Machu Picchu and the Amazon jungle. After a career teaching writing to college students in San Francisco and Taos, she often volunteers as a writing tutor at 826 Valencia, an esteemed literacy program launched by David Eggers. She has been a practicing Buddhist for twenty years and is a dedicated member of Spirit Rock Meditation Center north of San Francisco. She is a mother to two daughters, grandmother to five grandchildren, and great grandmother to a young boy living in Oregon. She is a classical pianist, photographer, gourmet cook, animal rescuer, and philanthropist.

Most recently Bowing to Elephants has been honored by Kirkus Review as one of the best Indie memoir/biographies of 2019 (it received a starred review). Prior to publication, excerpts from Bowing to Elephants were honored in American Literary Review, Travelers Tales Solas Awards, the Tulip Tree “Stories that Must be Told” awards, and the 2017 William Faulkner Wisdom awards. Additionally, Dimond has published essays in Elephant Journal, an online magazine with a readership of almost two million. You can find her essays on her website, and connect with her on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. 

Dimond is offering a 10 minute loving-kindness meditation for all new readers at this site: www.bowingtoelephants.com/gift.

Bowing to Elephants: Tales of a Travel Junkie

A travel memoir with a twist―the story of an unloved rich girl from San Francisco who becomes a travel junkie, searching for herself in the world to avoid the tragic fate of her narcissistic, alcoholic mother. Haunted by images of childhood loneliness and the need to learn about her world, Dimond journeys to far-flung places―into the perfumed chaos of India, the nostalgic, damp streets of Paris, the gray, watery world of Venice in the winter, the reverent and silent mountains of Bhutan, and the gold temples of Burma. In the end, she accepts the death of the mother she never really had―and finds peace and her authentic self in the refuge of Buddhist practice.

If you decide to check out the book, we hope you’ll do so via this Amazon affiliate link, where if you choose to purchase via the link DIY MFA gets a referral fee at no cost to you. As always, thank you for supporting DIY MFA!

(Right-click to download.)

If you liked this episode…

Head over to iTunes, Stitcher Radio or Google Play and subscribe so you’ll be first to know when new episodes are available.

Also, remember that sharing is caring so if you know anyone who might enjoy this podcast, please tell them about it or leave us a review so other listeners will want to check it out.

Until next week, keep writing and keep being awesome!

The post Episode 307: Mindfulness and Memoir – Interview with Mag Dimond appeared first on DIY MFA.

Natasha is an author, poet, humanitarian, and former aid worker. As a spokesperson for the United Nations, she covered humanitarian crises around the world and before the UN she worked for a variety of organizations, including the BBC, CNN, Al Jazeera English, the World Bank, TED, National Geographic, and Condé Nast Publications. 

She has been published in the New York Times, the Telegraph, Glamour UK, the Sydney Morning Herald, HuffPost, New York Post, and the Atlantic, among other publications. She has also been featured in Marie Claire, Women’s Health, and the Sunday Times Style magazine. 

Natasha has lived in several different countries, travels frequently, and seeks to inspire and empower women everywhere with her writing and her storytelling. Her first book is Man Fast: A Memoir, which we’ll be discussing on the show today.

In this episode Natasha and I discuss:

• The journey from writing a self-help book to writing a memoir.
• How to use writing to process grief. 
• The process of structuring a memoir’s outward and inward journey.
• Creating space for self-discovery.
• Saying, “No” to others to say, “Yes” to yourself.
• The power of being fully present.

Plus, Natasha’s #1 tip for writers.

About the Author

Natasha Scripture is an author, poet, humanitarian, and former aid worker. As a spokesperson for the United Nations, she covered humanitarian crises around the world. 

Before the UN she worked for a variety of organizations, including the BBC, CNN, Al Jazeera English, the World Bank, TED, National Geographic, and Condé Nast Publications. 

She has been published in the New York Times, the Telegraph, Glamour UK, the Sydney Morning Herald, HuffPost, New York Post, and the Atlantic, among other publications. She has also been featured in Marie Claire, Women’s Health, and the Sunday Times Style magazine. 

Natasha has lived in several different countries, travels frequently, and seeks to inspire and empower women everywhere with her writing and storytelling. 

Her first book, Man Fast: A Memoir, is now available.

Man Fast: A Memoir 

An exhilarating memoir about one woman’s globe-trotting journey of inspiring awakening and self-discovery.

Shaken by the loss of her father, drained by her job at the United Nations, and conflicted over failed relationships, Natasha Scripture asked herself the question at the heart of her anxiety: What is my purpose? The answer was not about finding love; it was about recognizing its source. The result is Man Fast, a true and intimate spiritual detective story.

With courage, honesty, and wit, Natasha shares the story of her awakening. Starting with the decision to fast from dating, she embarks on a journey that takes her from New York to an ashram in southern India to toiling in a vineyard on Mount Etna to a solo safari in southern Tanzania. In stepping away from the modern demand to couple up, Natasha finally finds a reflective space where she can be fully aware: of her grief, of her identity, and of love as a mystical, ever-present force.

An antidote to a culture that prizes finding the right man, Man Fast is an emotionally charged journey that leaves us with a greater understanding of ourselves and the world around us.

If you decide to check out the book, we hope you’ll do so via this Amazon affiliate link, where if you choose to purchase via the link DIY MFA gets a referral fee at no cost to you. As always, thank you for supporting DIY MFA!

(Right-click to download.)

If you liked this episode…

Head over to iTunes, Stitcher Radio or Google Play and subscribe so you’ll be first to know when new episodes are available.

Also, remember that sharing is caring so if you know anyone who might enjoy this podcast, please tell them about it or leave us a review so other listeners will want to check it out.

Until next week, keep writing and keep being awesome!

The post Episode 266: The Art of the Travel Memoir — Interview with Natasha Scripture appeared first on DIY MFA.