This fall has flown by, and I now sit among clocks that read two different hours. As we tie up Daylight Savings Time, I’m more than due for a publication update. My essay “Tequila after sunrise” was published last month in Whereabouts: Stepping Out of Place, an anthology about living in between spaces from 2 Leaf Press.
I’m thrilled to see my essay set at a tiny Greek hotel there on page 120 of this book, only in part because Henry Hughes of the The Harvard Review described the compilation as “Compellingly narrative and, at times, dazzlingly lyrical” and tagged its stories “both cerebral and sensual.”
I recommend this book to anyone with wanderlust, even if that curiosity has only sent you pinging around the U.S. In fact, one of my favorite essays explores what can happen when an American invites an international student home for Thanksgiving. Spoiler: He might fall in love with you as you paint your nails. Another piece narrates the hitchhiking life of a young married couple. Spoiler: They just may cover more ground than Jack Karouac.
Fitting for a travel writing book, the publication of Whereabouts set off launch parties all over. I recently joined one of these celebrations with Brandi Dawn Henderson, editor of the book and co-editor of Outside in, and about 60 of the contributors’ closest D.C. friends at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Public Library. If you missed the party and the books on sale there, you can pick up a copy on Amazon (not sure yet if it’s available at local bookstores).
I won’t apologize for those spoilers, by the way. Why? Because, like travel itself, reading these pieces is not so much about the destination but about the roads we take.
Rhea Kennedy Morgenstern, writer 