American travel writing is very healthy. I'm always flicking through the reviews and I see plenty of travel writing - and an impressive line up and continual demand.
I'd like to write fiction. Perhaps at some stage.
I feel better off doing what I know how to do. I feel a strong element of fictional style in travel writing anyway. Some call it creative nonfiction.
I think one should express opinions and these books are relatively opinionated. They would be a bit dry without it.
I have dipped into Ian McEwan and so on. I tend not to stick with one writer. But I dip in here and there.
One does have to learn to travel with a degree of humility and that reflected in writing and personality.
I realize how much [Mark] Twain fabricated things. I like it very much, but it's only half true. And it shows what he was trying to do, which was just entertain. Which he does very successfully, though the humor is almost dated now.
I am always surprised when people do get upset. Perhaps its just the nutty people who write to newspapers who get upset.
I find the public reaction to writing - it's fascinating in this modern age. Of course people are able to interact with me and email me, and I get quite a few I suppose.
What's fascinating is where they come from in the world. People in Bangladesh, a chap in a fire-base in Tikrit in Iraq. Chap in an Irish pub in Dublin. And lovely to think this literary network - or rather network of readers - is well spread out.
I would love to write a book that opens people's eyes to the more interesting side.
