Do you know when you've found someone - a fellow traveler and author, and you FEEL as if you've met the coolest person? And then you read their site, and follow their travels, and think again, THIS person has it right, THEY know how to travel and live. And then, you start reading their books and POW you know that this person is making a difference in lives - by living and traveling authentically, thinking about how to be in the world, and sharing it. Well, maybe you've not met her yet. But today, you can. The fellow traveler and author? Professor, writer, and traveler Mary Morris. She's written a dozen books - fiction and travel-related non-fiction. I've recently finished (quite quickly, as I did NOT want to put it down) one of her travel memoirs, The River Queen. A story of a houseboat trip down the Mississippi River with river pilots Tom and Jerry, Morris searches for the essence of the river, as well as a connection to her father. It's a mid-life memoir, but one that shows Morris as both poetic (that evening fire on the sandbar, cooking steaks. Wish I'd been there!) and crabby (shower, please! no bugs, please!), telling her travels - and travails - with honesty. For truly, how often do we read travel memoir and think, My Family Does NOT Travel Like That. We have differences of opinion, blood sugar levels, tolerance for country music, etc. This was refreshingly, compellingly, honest and real.

Morris is a professor at Sarah Lawrence College, and seems to pack a great deal of travel into her life. See what I mean? She's one of US, one of the global vagabonds that can't seem to sit still (unless to plan the next trip). Her writing brings in the worldview of women (like Gail Griffin's Calling: Essays on Teaching in the Mother Tongue, but for travel) while at the same time Humanizing it for all of us. Her blog says "Novelist and travel writer, Mary Morris, reflects on landscapes and literature and the role that each has played in her life." Yep.

We were lucky enough to sit down and chat with Mary about her traveling life, writing, balancing travel/writing/academia, Indiana Jones, and more. Here's what she had to say...

Mary Morris. photo by Jill Krementz

WE: Please tell us about your traveling life...

MM: It is really difficult to separate my traveling life from any other parts of my life.  I suppose I have always been a restless person.  My father used to call me Pigeon because I was also fluttering around.  Anyway I do better in motion.  I like to read, write on trains, planes.  My life as a traveler, a writer, and just a person are all tied up together.  But I guess I would say that I need it.  It is a kind of fix for me.  I love to meet new people, experience difference places.  I love to see how odd and funny the world can be.

Mary Morris in Turkey 

WE: What led you to write travel narratives?

MM: I will try and give you a short answer to what really is fairly complicated.   I always traveled and I always kept journals.  I would have to say that I write fairly obsessively in journals when I am on the road.  When I am just home, I don’t do it at as much, though I always miss my journals when I don’t have time to write in them.  Anyway a number of years ago I was between books and my editor asked me what I wanted to do.  The New York Times Book Review had just published a special summer issue of travel books and they were all by men.  I complained about this to my editor and wondered why women weren’t writing travel narratives.  And she said to me that I was traveling all the time and she never knew where I was, but I hadn’t written one either.  So I set out to do it.  I read a bunch of the books reviewed in the Times, but decided that women’s experiences on the road are different from men’s.  I wanted to give voice to that.

butterfly on journal, taken at a butterfly conservatory in Florida 

WE: You're also a Professor - how do you balance travel, writing, and academia?

MM: My students tease me that I’m a little like Indiana Jones.  I’m in the classroom, well, during the school year, but when it’s over, I’m sort of gone.  Though I do have a house and husband and child (well, now a young woman) and pets, I take off a lot during school holidays.  In terms of the balance between teaching and writing, I try to teach in the afternoon, as late as possible.  I am a very grouchy person on day’s when I don’t write so I do my best to spend at least a few hours every morning writing.  Then I go to school.  I am pretty good at compartmentalizing my time.

WE: Your students have teased you that you're like Indiana Jones. Do you feel that way? How do you combine these fields?

MM: I see I’ve answered this above.  But I will share a funny anecdote.  I once had this assignment from a magazine and in the photo shoot I was dressed all in black and I was riding a white horse through the high desert in the Southwest.  One of my students happened to be visiting his brother in Hawaii and the brother had the magazine on his coffee table.  Later the student told me how his jaw dropped to see his creative writing teacher, galloping across the plateaus.  He was the one who likened me to Indiana Jones. 

WE: You just returned from Turkey - what were your favorite aspects of traveling there?

MM: Well, my favorite aspect of traveling there was traveling there…The journey for me is the whole thing.  But specifically I found the Turks to be a gracious, considerate people.  I loved the landscapes especially Capadoccia and I absolutely loved Istanbul.  I can see why writers go there.  I could easily live there for a little while.   One day my husband and I were taking a boat up the Bosphorus to the Black Sea and I heard a guy in Italian say how Istanbul reminded him of Brooklyn – which is where I live.  I had to laugh, but I could see it – Brooklyn with its bridges and waterways.  Anyway I loved everything about Turkey. 

WE: International Education (through Study Abroad, cultural exchange, etc.) can change the world. How can we promote these activities and move forward with intercultural knowledge and cultural diplomacy? How can travel writing and memoir inform these activities?

MM: Personally I’ve never been a fan of nationalism.  As with any kind of fanaticism it has  only wrought misery.  We need to be open to the world.  Not closed off into some narrow way we think it should be. We live in a global village now.  Almost anyone can go anywhere.  Europe has one currency.  All our economies are linked.  I feel that cultural exchange and understanding is the best way to world peace.  The more we understand one another the better the chance that we will find a way not to ruin our planet.

WE:  How can international educators - and travelers - promote intercultural and diversity issues?

MM: By teaching our students how to look at the world.  There is a quote from Marcel Proust I am going to paraphrase here.  He says that travel isn’t about seeing new places but about seeing them with new eyes.  It is those new eyes that teachers can bring to help students see the world.  If we think that xenophobia is a form of myopia, then doing what Proust suggests has to be its opposite.

WE:  Is there anything else you'd like to share with us?

MM: I think I’ve always been a storyteller.  And I love stories.  It is what I find most exciting about being on the road.  I find stories.  Really there are stories everywhere.

One of Mary's journals that is currently on display at the Anne Frank Center in NYC at an exhibition of diaries and journals

WE: Thanks so very much, Mary! I'm digging into more of your books, and enjoying every one. I'm looking forward to following your journeys for a long, long time.

For more information, please see:
www.marymorris.net
www.thewriterandthewanderer.blogspot.com

Feature photo:

Mary Morris in the harem in the Topkapi Palace, Turkey

All photos courtesy and copyright Mary Morris