Stories

A collection of published and unpublished travel features, personal essays, and fiction. 

moments of silence in big sur

The first thing I notice is the quiet. It begins the minute I turn off my engine, step out of my car and onto the small dirt parking lot of the New Camaldoli Hermitage. It is a sudden, overwhelming quiet that takes me aback. I am unnerved, unaccustomed to this kind of stillness.

in the kitchen with yuyo

It is a mild afternoon in Morelia and warm streams of sunlight filter in from the open-air courtyard of the house, brightening Yuyo’s kitchen. Although I’ve been in this room many times, I‘ve never really taken a good look around and a part of me is disappointed by what’s not here. I admit to having some romantic notions of the Mexican kitchen.

Old world charm in prague's eastern cousin

So I was more than a little intrigued when, after I had asked Tanja, a university student sitting next to me, where I should head next, she looked me squarely in the eye and pronounced the name of a city I'd never heard of before: "O-lo-moatz" was the unfamiliar name that rolled off her tongue. She leaned in, as if telling a secret, and whispered, "Olomouc is better than Prague."