Traveling as a writer, and awkward book-tour experiences, with Anthony Doerr (from 2012)

“I’m interested in writing because I don’t want to sleepwalk through life. I feel like we have an appallingly brief time on earth, and we’re here to see and understand and do as much good as we can before we’re gone.” –Anthony Doerr

In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Anthony talk about how the pace of travel changes the experience of travel, and what it’s like to travel as a writer (2:45); how to manage the local and the global, the specific and the universal, the concrete and the speculative, in one’s writing (12:30); how the idea of “home” influences one’s craft as a writer who travels (23:00); common mistakes writers make when writing about places and cultures they don’t know well, and humiliating travel (and book-tour) experiences (31:00).

Anthony Doerr is a novelist and essayist, and short story writer. His 2014 novel All the Light We Cannot See won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and was made into a Netflix miniseries in 2023.

Books and authors mentioned:

• Four Seasons in Rome, by Anthony Doerr (book)
• The Vagabond’s Way, by Rolf Potts (book)
• Daniel Woodrell (novelist)
• Aimee Nezhukumatathil (poet and essayist)
• Benjamin Percy (author, essayist and comic book writer)
• Paul Theroux (travel writer and novelist)
• Bob Shacochis (novelist and literary journalist)
• Peter Hessler (travel writer and journalist)
• Tony D’Souza (novelist)
• Marco Polo Didn’t Go There, by Rolf Potts (book)
• Travels in Alaska, by John Muir (book)
• Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov (book)
• Joseph Conrad (Polish-British novelist)
• Wade Davis (Canadian author and anthropologist)
• Jared Diamond (author and historian)
• Gina Ochsner (novelist and short story writer)

Other links:

• Downton Abbey (British historical drama TV series)
• “My Beirut Hostage Crisis,” by Rolf Potts (travel essay)
• “The Hunter’s Wife,” by Anthony Doerr (short story)
• “Querencia,” by Suzannah Lessard (New Yorker article)
• Querencia (Spanish mystical concept)
• Jardin des Plantes (botanical garden in Paris)
• Corsac fox (steppe fox found in Mongolia)
• Pantheon (ancient Roman temple)
• “On Native Ground,” by Wade Davis (essay)
• “The Deep,” by Anthony Doerr (short story)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber.

Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.