My latest magazine feature just hit newsstands across Canada and select international magazine stores in the United States. It’s the main feature of Outpost’s 15th Anniversary issue: a story of mystery, myth and our search for the real man behind the legend of King Arthur. I learned that a journey through Wales is a lot like waking up in a detective story. And in this episode we were traveling...
The theme of Cappadocia is Seclusion and Fear. Isolated by its arid emptiness, its people sought further seclusion by digging vast cities deep under the ground. They tunneled to escape invasion, military recruitment, and puritanical government attempts to control the distillation of raki. The rock is threaded by rooms in which thousands of people could live for 4 or 5 months without ever coming...
To me, Dylan Thomas has always been a monumental figure. The sheer originality of his word usage was intimidating and sometimes difficult to approach. He was also a poet whose facade of unruly drunkenness could overshadow the importance and originality of his work. So much of his life was shrouded in “official myth” that it was difficult to see the person behind it. Thanks to our friend John...
Writing well is a lot like photography. It involves staying in a place and opening your aperture wide for a long exposure, so that you can gather the most light. The longer you sit at that cafe table or mosque or mountain peak, the more grain and detail will begin to come clear. Focused time allows deeper impressions and images to form on the surface of your mind — but like a camera lens, you can...