Last spring I audited Professor Eric Freeze’s special topics workshop on travel writing.
I arrived a skeptic.
What could students teach a middle-aged man about travel? What place does such a course have in the liberal arts curriculum?
What I found was a class I wish I’d taken long ago—a course in keen observation, careful reading, thoughtful questions, and the craft of revision. An exploration of place, memory, and the senses, led by a writer/teacher deeply committed to both vocations.
I found students with stories that needed telling and ways of telling them that, like good travel, changed how I see those places. And I joined a community of writers listening to and critiquing each other’s work, often with surprising insight
and humor.
That work took us around the world, but some students made their most moving discoveries
closer to home.
Here are a few places we went…
—Steve Charles, editor
