An Iceland Birding Story I Hadn’t Shared Until Now

I’ve been writing about our birding journeys on this blog for 12 years now. I’ve also been writing essays that I workshop, but haven’t published them here. Stories that end up on my blog generally aren’t eligible for publication elsewhere, which is why I save some stories to workshop and send out for publication. So, as those stories are published I will provide you the link to the publications.

Why do I workshop some of my stories? Because I need to go deeper into the story. Deeper into myself. In a first draft (and on this blog) I’m generally not keen to do that. But my workshop writer friends know that and nudge me in the right direction. Occasionally, I’ve let myself be vulnerable here, like in France when we birded the Camargue. And when Steve was recovering from two different cancers.

Last week, Geographic Expeditions published one of my essays, Diversions. The story also won first place at the 2023 Book Passage Travel Writers and Photographers Conference last August. The piece shares what I was going through on our Iceland birding trip back in 2021. Here’s an excerpt:

“Finally I could blame my exhaustion on something else for a change. But I wondered how much longer I could look for birds on our usual trips through jungles, cloud forests, deserts, and swamps. Eventually I would be on oxygen and unable to travel.“

Visit the Geographic Expeditions site to read my essay, Diversions.