Fridays 7:00 to 9:30 pm, February 10 – March 16, 2012
Instructor: David Farley (bio below)

This six-week writing class will focus on how to turn your travel experiences into solid travel writing – either for your own personal enjoyment or to become a published travel writer. We’ll discuss: story ideas and the elements of good and not-so-good travel writing; how to conduct pre-trip research and spot stories while on the road; and how to write the perfect lead and to pitch potential and completed stories to magazine editors.

Weekly lectures will be followed by in-class writing assignments or a workshop in which we critique students’ work. In addition to in-class assignments, you will be responsible for at least one longer travel story to be workshopped in class.

Lecture schedule:

Week 1 – Types of articles: destination pieces, travel round-ups, news features, and more.

Week 2 – Anatomy of an article, and analysis of classic travel writing.

Week 3 – Recognizing potential stories or angles, and how to pitch them.

Week 4 – Travel memoir and personal essays.

Week 5 – Research, revision, and the business of travel writing.

Week 6 – The art of travel: traveling for fun and profit.

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About the instructor: David Farley is the author of An Irreverent Curiosity: In Search of the Church’s Strangest Relic in Italy’s Oddest Town (Penguin/Gotham Books), a travel memoir/narrative history about farley’s bizarre, intriguing, and sometimes humorous search for one of Christianity’s most curious relics: the foreskin of Jesus.

David is also the co-editor of Travelers’ Tales Prague and the Czech Republic, an anthology of literary nonfiction about the Czech capital and its environs. His travel essays have also appeared in the books, The Best Travel Writing 2009, The Best Travelers’ Tales 2004 and 30 Days in Italy. In 2005, David’s story, “Natural Born Pig Killers,” won a Lowell Thomas Award, which recognizes excellence in travel writing. A year later, his story “Of Kings and Cows” was named one of the notable travel stories in The Best American Travel Writing 2006.

David spends his time eating, drinking, traveling and then writing about it. His work appears in the travel sections of The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, and The Chicago Tribune, as well as the magazines Conde Nast Traveler, Arthur Frommer’s Budget Travel, Playboy, GQ, New York magazine, Time Out New York, Scientific American, National Geographic Traveler, WorldHum.com, Slate.com, and TheDailyBeast.com among other publications. He’s also a regular contributor to The New York Times’ “In Transit” blog. He’s talked about his travels on the Fine Living network and radio stations all over the country. He’s lectured at the Smithsonian Institute and the New York Times Travel Show. In addition to his class at Idlewild, David teaches writing at New York University and Gotham Writers’ Workshop.