More Praise for Encounters Contributors

By Nesreen | April 14th, 2008 | No Comments

Congratulations to Peter Wortsman and Catherine Watson for having their Encounters stories selected for Travelers’ Tales The Best Travel Writing 2008, just released March 2008.

Peter’s story, “Holy Land Blues” is a delightful memoir recalling his first pilgrimage to Israel in the mid 1970s. This lively and spirited piece takes us to coastal Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, the Negev and the Sinai Peninsula, at a time when the aspirations of the Zionist enterprise where freshly evident throughout Israel.

Catherine’s story “Key to the City,” is another memoir piece of recollections of her time in Lebanon as a graduate student. She rounds out her story by telling us of her nostalgic return many years later to the neighborhood that endeared her.

Encounters contributors Rolph Potts and Joel Carrillet also have stories featured in the new Best of volume.

We hope you’ll consider joining us to meet some of these contributors as they make public appearances to share their stories and explain their relationship to the Middle East. Peter and contributor Chris Kipiniak will join Nesreen Khashan in NYC April 26 at the Bowery Club, 308 Bowery Street (between Houston and Bleeker), NYC. The event starts at noon and concludes 1:45p.m. Chris, incidentally, is a theater actor who recently wrapped up a three-month tour of Argonautika: The Voyage of Jason and the Argonauts. Chris also writes for Marvel Comics and has many other exciting ventures afoot.

If you’re closer to DC, consider joining Joel Carrillet, and editors Nesreen Khashan and Jim Bowman Saturday, May 17 at Busboys and Poets in Arlington, VA, just outside of the nation’s capital. That event begins at 3p.m. and runs till 4:30.

We’ll keep sending reminders as these dates approach. We’d love to see you there to share our enthusiasm for offering humanizing depictions of Middle Easterners. These stories are gems for their humor and levity, as well as their modesty and revelatory moments. They teach us not only about the generous and vibrant region where these stories take place, but also about ourselves, and about what travel, wherever it occurs, should be about.