There are a lot of writing contests out there, many of which I send serially rejected stories and essays to. But here’s one that might interest some of you aspiring travel writers. Fast on the heels of Sheila’s recent post about establishment publication Transitions Abroad going online, a friend sent me a reminder of that magazine’s 2009 Narrative Travel Writing Contest.

It’s the sort of thing tailor made for intrepid travelers — and for imaginative writers. I love their description: they’re looking not for a travelogue, but for “a well-crafted and inspirational story which should appeal to those who have traveled independently overseas with open minds, sensitive souls, and empathetic imaginations.” I’d just like to meet some people like that.

The theme for this year’s contest is “Travel in a Dangerous World,” but the field is wider than that description seems to indicate. “We are looking for stories written by authors who have taken a risk — or been told that they were taking a risk — when traveling overseas,” say the editors, which leaves room for a lot of interpretation. In addition, “editors of TransitionsAbroad.com will judge entries based upon the following criteria: sensitivity to the people and culture being described, ability to engage the reader, and literary quality.” What would you consider a risk? And how well can you write about it?

The contest deadline is October 31, 2008, and the word limit is 1000 to 3000 words. The first-place winner will receive $500 (USD), the second-place entry $150, and the third-place winner $100. Any other articles selected as runner-ups will receive a $50 payment.

Full guidelines and links to last year’s winning essays here. Get your pens out!

There’s a great round-up of travel stories plus book and music reviews in the latest edition of Perceptive Travel Magazine.

Rory MacLean writes about Sun–bathing with Ghosts in Cassadaga. Cassadaga is located in central Florida and while it doesn’t really sound like my kinda place, it’s fun reading about anyway.

Dave Lowe is one a different spiritual trail in Death’s Prediction and Disaster, By Way of Dharmsala.

On a lighter note, Tim Leffel wanders Western Canada Through the Eyes of a Child,  David Lee Drotar checks out Dial–a–Bird, and Bruce Northam explores the Boomerang Hieroglyphics on the Nile.

Plus a great collection of travel book and music reviews…

And don’t forget to enter the newest giveaway as well. This time you have the chance to win one of TEN Perceptive Travel Coolmax moisture wicking t-shirts courtesy of the fine folks at CoolClothingUSA.com. Five will be given away to newsletter subscribers and five to people who are just joining us. If you’re in the latter camp, send the e-mail confirmation of your sign-up (as in a fake address will do you no good) and your mailing address to remarkable [at] perceptivetravel.com. See the box at the top right of this page to sign up. We’ll pick five at random by the end of July.

Happy reading this Independence Day weekend…

If you’ve got a bit of time on your hands,  grab a coffee and click on the latest Perceptive Travel zine.

This month’s lineup includes…

Features:

Laurie Gough puts on her hiking books while trying to separate the divine from the delusional in “Sedona: Is the Whole Town Built on a Hoax?”

Edward Readicker–Henderson, on a whirlwind journey through Africa, looks at “How the Last White Rhino in Zambia Wins at Strip Passport”

Amy Rosen takes a trip to Wales and forages for food in “Don’t Eat Low–lying Berries, and Other Lessons Learned in the Wales Countryside”

Rob Sangster recounts his experiences of traveling to the remote Indian town of Leh in “Members of the Tribe”

Michael Buckley addressed the current Olympic torch controversy in “Olympic Fire and Brimstone”

Music and Book Reviews:

Tim Leffel has put to together a great selection of music and book reviews for you listening and reading plesure.

Now here’s a reason I wish I lived in San Francisco. Travel writer Jeff Greenwald is going to be spending his April Saturdays at The Marsh theater performing live storytelling of his world travels in a show called Strange Travel Suggestions.

Greenwald’s Shopping for Buddhas was one of the first and most easily engaging travel books I ever read, and as mentioned in a previous post I’m a big fan of live storytelling, so this sounds like a good combination. There’s no mention of whether he’ll be taking Strange Travel Suggestions on the road (here’s to hoping, although somehow I don’t think my town of 300 will be on the list), but the San Francisco Chronicle has a great article covering his cogent thoughts on travel storytelling.

If you’re looking for a short, great travel book, pick up Greenwald’s Shopping for Buddhas, a fantastic example of incorporating the best elements of travel writing in an unexpected and satisfying story arc. And if anyone’s in the San Fran area and gets to see the show, tell us how it was!

It seems that cold places really are getting more space in our travel, and, unfortunately, pointless tourism. In the new Jan/Feb 08 issue of Perceptive Travel, Marie Javins has one of the most excellent essays I’ve ever read about the disappointment encountered when trying to experience the soul-thrilling empty ice of Antarctica. When a fellow passenger prods her to count how many countries she’s been to (”C’mon. Everybody knows. Don’t pretend you haven’t counted” has got to be the best distillation of the much-argued difference between tourists and travelers I’ve ever read) she realizes that the once-in-a-lifetime encounter she’d been hoping for is lost among the 37,500 tourists who ticked Antarctica off their lists that year.

Antarctica is a place I, too, have dreamed of going to. But after reading Javins’s essay, I’m more inclined to wait and follow some of her recommendations on how not to see the ice as one of thousands of tourists.

In addition to stories on a desert survival school in Utah and traveling up the river in Borneo, this issue also has David Lee Drotar traveling across Arctic Finland not by plane train, and automobile, but by snowmobile, snowshoe, dogsled, icebreaker ship, and reindeer sleigh.

And Fawzia Rasheed de Francisco has a very funny essay of particular interest to me as a new parent: is it really that hard to travel with kids? What are the drawbacks? What are the phantom fears? And what happens to all those happy life-in-my-rucksack twenty-somethings when they have kids? It can’t be that scary or difficult. After all, she points out, children do live in most parts of the world. Which made me ready to start thinking about my son’s first trip once he’s well enough to fly.

And kudos to Perceptive Travel magazine, which published Amy Rosen’s article “How to Build an Igloo (at 40 Below),” which won a First Prize from the North American Travel Journalists Association.