The Taste of This Place

Here are a few menus from the siege of Paris.  The first item is precious Pain du Siege as described in the Wings story, “The Taste of This Place.”

Le Civet de Kangourou, mmmmm… Kangaroo stew!!Siege-menu1 Siege-menu2 340px-Menu-siegedeparis

WINGS Sketch Artist, Anna Elkins

Meet l’Artiste!

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Anna Elkins is a traveling poet and painter. She earned a BA in art and English and an MFA and Fulbright Fellowship in poetry. Her writings have been published in journals and books, and her paintings hang on walls around the world. She has written, painted, and taught on six continents. She is the author of the illustrated vignette, The Heart Takes Flight, the novel The Honeylicker Angel, and the poetry collection The Space Between. Anna has set up her easel and writing desk in the mythical State of Jefferson. www.annaelkins.com

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3b Route des ChateauxThere are over 100 gorgeous sketches by Anna in Wings, many of which come with addresses so that readers can find the bistros, cafés, inns, châteaux, villages and other sites.

Recently, we traveled to Morocco and France together, and visited many of the sites she had sketched.  Here are her impressions:

The most recent trip I took to Paris was a kind of pilgrimage. I had spent seven months the previous year creating over one hundred illustrations for Erin Byrne’s luminous book, Wings. Many of her stories are set in Paris. I had been to some of the sites I drew, but others I had only “met” through photographs.

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My birthday arrived right after I did. Erin suggested we meet at Le Bistrot d’Henri—one of the very first Parisian sites I had sketched for her book. I had first encountered this charming spot in her story, “Two Boys in a Bistro”—long before I knew I would one day illustrate its exterior, let alone celebrate my birthday inside. I will always remember the moment my friends and I found the address. We had taken a wrong turn and finally made it to Rue Princesse. And there it was: the bistro just as I had imagined it while sketching it, with Erin waiting inside to welcome us.

It was like that for every place in Paris—known and new, from the Luxembourg Gardens to Les Editeurs. At every turn, I felt a shiver of delightful recognition and a sense of being welcomed inside the stories the sketches were based on.

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The illustrations in Wings are invitations to the stories. They beckon you inside. They say “welcome.” 

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View Anna’s images here

Joseph Campbell on Travel, Adventure, and Magical Guides

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If what you are following, however, is your own true adventure, if it is something appropriate to your deep spiritual need or readiness, then magical guides will appear to help you. If you say, ‘Everyone’s going on this trip this year, and I’m going too,’ then no guides will appear.

Your adventure has to be coming right out of your own interior. If you are ready for it, then doors will open where there were no doors before, and where there would not be doors for anyone else. And you must have courage. It’s the call to adventure, which means there is no security, no rules.

—Joseph Campbell, A Joseph Campbell
Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living

WING: Gifts of Art, Life, and Travel in France is a book about how I was changed by traveling around France with the ghosts of artists and historical figures who shared with me their guides to living.

Soon I will introduce you!  First up will be the photographer known as “The Timecatcher of the Twentieth Century”

Interview, Rolf Potts Travel Writer Series

vagabondingI’m so excited to be a part of this fascinating interview series!  Read about how I get started writing, my biggest challenges on the road, inside tips from my collection of stellar mentors, and a reading list of travel books that will incite your wanderlust.

When you are finished with mine, peruse the archives for interviews with the best travel writers from all over the world.

Thank you so much to Rolf Potts, whose books Marco Polo Didn’t Go There and Vagabonding are in places of honor on my bookshelf!

http://www.rolfpotts.com/writers/index.php?writer=Erin%20Byrne

Filming, Paris – Three short films: Wings Trailer, The Mirror of Montmartre, and Signs

filming cour du commerce st andreThe week of filming celebrated all I love about Paris.  People welcomed us graciously, showed interest, and eagerly offered ideas – a book signing here, a party there, anything at all.  In cafés, connections sparked, continual electrical currents.  At sunset, the Seine flickered as people wandered along the quais, or stopped to listen to jazz trios jamming on bridges.  The city invited all to be enthralled, charmed, romanced.– “Out Into Paris”, Postscript in Wings, Gifts of Art, Life, and Travel in France
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Michelangelo sculpted his Slaves during years of unceasing labor for pope after pope, often waiting for payment, and to me, the marble captives carry his own desperation.

– “The Mystique of Art”,  Wings

 

Gratitude to my awesome filmmaker, Rogier Van Beeck Calkoen, whose work is meticulous, gorgeous, and brilliant.

Stranger Than Fiction Reading Series, San Francisco

Thank you to the vivacious Frances Stroh for hosting this varied and rich event!  Watch for her book, Beer Money: A memoir of Privilege and Loss, which will be released in May, 2016.

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These six local authors–Jack Boulware, Meghan Ward, Alan Black,Melissa Cistaro, Joe Loya, and Erin Byrne–will hit it out of the park on Sunday at the Edinburgh Castle, 3-5 PM!

https://www.facebook.com/events/449928255208049/

Salon: Storytelling

You are Invited to a Storytelling Salon

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Hajj, storyteller in Marrakech

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Ann Dufaux with friends in Fez

 

 

 

 

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Jean-Bernard Ponthus – Moroccan royalty 

 

 

 

Come listen to stories we spin from our trip, Deep Travel Morocco

Friday, November 13, 7 pm

Paris, Île Saint Louis

Hosted by Erin Byrne
 

 

Also featuring Christina Ammon speaking about her Deep Travel trips!!

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Deep Travel Storytelling, Marrakech

http://e-byrne.com/workshop.html

Hajj seemed to be woven of the ancient and the modern.  He embodied stories the Berbers told centuries ago, and looked the picture of a traditional Moroccan Hakawati, but often he pulled his phone out of the pocket of his robes and huddled over it; or sat down on a step and leaned forward, elbows on knees, dragging on a cigarette like the Moroccan Marlboro Man while teasing my co-instructor Doug about being shebe (white-haired); or whipped out his Kindle to read a line or two.  But when Hajj told a story, time and distance morphed and language was transcended.  – “The Ancient Storyteller of Morocco”, Afterword in Vignettes & Postcards From Morocco” (August, 2016, ReputationBooks)

A million shukrans to the dynamic Mike Richardson, owner of Café Clock in Fez, Café Clock in Marrakech, and Scorpion House in Moulay Idriss for MOST gracious hospitality and event organization, and to Rose Button at Dar Zerhoune for hosting our Deep Travel writers.

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