Writing a travel memoir: with Katrina Beikoff
Sitting on an aeroplane en route from Shanghai to Brisbane in 2008, Australian journalist Katrina Beikoff decided she was going to write a travel memoir about the year she had just spent living in China with her partner and two young children.
The sojourn in Shanghai had come about when she and partner, fellow journalist Gary Smart, were offered roles as foreign experts for the Shanghai Daily, the city's only English language newspaper.
Just a few months later the couple crammed some essentials into suitcases - baked beans, Vegemite and Milo - and took themselves and their children, Milly, then aged three, and Nelson, 18 months, off to Shanghai.
On her journey home to the Gold Coast 12 months later, Katrina saw she had an amazing opportunity to pen an account of hers and her family's experiences and the country as they saw it.
Speaking to her this week, I was intrigued to learn how she put together a travel memoir that is funny, personal, insightful and very informative. It's the type of book she wished had been available when she was making the decision to move her family to Shanghai.
In this podcast, Katrina reveals how she captures the sights, sounds and – often disgusting – smells of Shanghai for her readers; the importance of transitioning between anecdotes and reportage; writing with humour; and how she went about researching factual topics.
Listen to Katrina's full interview, or use the index of my interview questions below to navigate to the sections you are interested in hearing.
1. You have written a travel memoir that offers personal insight as well as an informative look at the culture and way of life in China. So tell us, how did you get the right formula between memoir and factual reportage? 00:00
2. You transition well between anecdotes and factual information. I found it quite seamless when you went from writing about your family’s plight to factual details of China. For example, you write about your day on the Great Wall of China and you use your physical surroundings to segue into China’s profile. You write: 'Rather we were caught like flotsam, swept along in the flow of eager Chinese sightseers, determined to catch every aspect of the experience. China, with one quarter of the world’s population is all about people.' Are good transitions vital to segue from personal storytelling to factual reportage? 00:53
3. Tell me about your writing process. Did you write sections that covered the facts and then segue way into your anecdotes? Or did you still write in the format of a story with an introduction, middle and end? 02:45
4. Your book is funny and intriguing, as evidenced by your opening sentence: 'Vegemite is really hard to remove from the Great Wall of China.' As a reader I was instantly intrigued to know how Vegemite got on the Great Wall and how you got it off. How do you, as a writer, find and deliver humour to readers? 04:30
5. What are the techniques to writing humorous lines? Is it keeping them succinct? Or do you just, as you say, try to write in the spoken word? 05:34
6. I notice you have a real eye for thorough detail. You write, for example, 'I love walking along Wulu-muqi Lu where there were vendors selling all sorts of dumplings, frogs, crabs, chestnuts, fish, vegetables, and huge pots of dried, crackly mystery ingredients that might be from the river or sea. It was messy and it was noisy. There were always people lined up at a few of the dumpling stores while sour-looking cooks at the almost-empty dumpling stores next door looked on.' How important is descriptive detail in this type of book? 06:43
7. Did you try to avoid clichés and just explain things as you saw heard or smelt them? 09:00
8. Did you think about your audience as you were writing in this genre, or was it more of a recollection for yourself and your family? 10:19
9. You do have a lot of factual information in the book. Did you research your topics while you were in Shanghai or did you have to do a lot of research when you returned home to Australia? 12:18
10.
What about your audience, who are the likely readers of this book? 14:11
No Chopsticks Required
My family's unexpected year in Shanghai
By Katrina Beikoff
Published by Finch Publishing
January 2011
For more information about Pamela Wilson or WriteSmart, log on to http://www.writesmart.com.au/