Essays and Journalism
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Apocalypse Soon |
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The Walrus, a Canadian news magazine, published an article of mine in their September 2007 issue about the apocalyptic future of the publishing industry.
Shortly afterwards a brief essay I wrote on the (related) subject of free online publication was published on The Guardian's book blog. |
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Yours truly on Olkhon Island |
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In August 2007, CBC.ca's Words At Large section ran a travel piece of mine called, descriptively enough, Ten Tips for Travel to Exotic Countries. It later appeared on MSN.ca, too. |
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Lake Kivu |
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My first article for The Walrus, published in their May 2006 issue, was about a killer lake in Central Africa. Yes, I said "killer lake." If you can't wait for the inevitable disaster movie, go ahead and read In the Shadow of Doom. |
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Black Hawk up |
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In May 2005, I spent a week in Iraq on assignment for Wired magazine, and wrote them a 4,000-word article. In the end they ran a small spinoff version of the piece called Wiring the War Zone.
I vastly prefer the original, Blood, Bullets, Bombs and Bandwidth (which got Slashdotted a while back.) |
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Rwanda |
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Genocide in L.A. isn't really about genocide in L.A. |
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But Enough About Me, Let's Talk About What You Can Do For Me (hosted on a different site, opens in a new window) explains how not to write, in case you were curious. |
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Travel Tools
Travel Tales
I've fallen into the habit of sending occasional travel updates to friends of mine when I'm on the road. Read if you dare:
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Haiti, March 2007. Some notes from Port-au-Prince, Haiti's sprawling, sweltering, seething capital, the poorest and most violent city in the entire Western Hemisphere. |
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The Trans-Siberian, September 2006. It's when you fight your way through the hordes and out of Moscow's metro and walk into Yaroslavsky Station that the sheer scale of the journey starts to really hit you, when you look at the time-zone markers under the diagram of the rail network, and the way those numbers mount up as the track sweeps eastwards: +6, +7, +8. Eight time zones. A third of the world. |
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Durban, December 2005. So there1 I stood, clutching my bared Swiss Army knife2 in my trembling fist3, alone4 and otherwise unarmed, surrounded by a thousand5 bloodthirsty6 Zulus7. The witch doctor8 fixed me with a baleful glare9. I knew there was no escape10. |
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Iraq, May 2005. In which our hero travels to a desert war zone and is promptly wounded by marauding shellfish. |
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Cusco, May 2004 recounts my expedition along the Inca Trail to Macchu Picchu, and, for added social commentary, my less-than-harrowing descent into coca addiction. |
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Cairo, July 2003 begins with a story of becoming what my sister called "The Anti-Kurtz" that seemed popular. I would like to stress that this tale starts off grossly exaggerated and moves into sheer fiction. I would like to double stress this if your name is David Brown and it is your driver I refer to. And if you are David Brown's driver Achmed, listen, I am so very sorry. |
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Zagreb, June 2003 tells of Stalinist hotels in Kosovo and my overambitious expedition to the supremely gorgeous Plitvice Lakes. |
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Port Moresby, October 2002 explains how I am, in fact, pretty fly (for a white guy). |
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Cairns, October 2002 discusses scuba diving, and warns the world of the immense dangers posed by certain flightless birds. |
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Darjeeling, November 2000 describes How To Buy A Ticket In India. |
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