WRITING
Learning to Write in the City of Light
My experience at a writing workshop in Paris
“Then we sallied forth into the streets, arm in arm, continuing the topics of the day, or roaming far and wide until a late hour, seeking, amid the wild lights and shadows of the populous city, that infinity of mental excitement which quiet observation can afford.” — Edgar Allen Poe, The Murders in the Rue Morgue
One of the best decisions I have ever made, as a writer and lifelong learner, was to enrol in a week-long “travel memoir writing workshop” in Paris, which I attended in August 2023. I will detail here what led me to this course, what it included, and what I took away from the experience.
While traveling over the past few years, I often kept a paperback copy of Don George’s “The Lonely Planet Guide to Travel Writing” in my pack. While flipping through it before my flight out of India, I happened upon an interview with Rolf Potts (bestselling author of “Vagabonding”) where he is asked about formal opportunities to study travel writing and cites his own annual travel memoir writing workshop in Paris.
