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ISLANDS experts travel the globe to bring you the best photos and stories from islands around the world. Today we talk to award-winning writer Edward Readicker-Henderson.
Watch for Edward’s story on Venice in ISLANDS magazine.
Moment you became a traveler: I was living in Japan, assuming that, after I left, I'd take up a career as an obscure novelist. But my planned route to obscurity was a long one, taking me from Japan to Nepal to China, Russia, and so on. An ambitious trip that required getting into shape, and, thankfully, my house in Japan was perfect for that: it was at the top of a mountain, 575 stairs from where I worked. One day, I was running the middle section of those stairs, which went alongside a Shinto shrine. And as I ran, I realized the stairs fell into a pattern: five steps, landing, seven steps, landing, five steps, much bigger landing. The stairs were the same rhythm as haiku. When I was done laughing about it, I sat down to write about it. That was the night I became a travel writer.
Most recent trip and lesson-learned: I'm just home from Venice, where I went to try and hear what the world sounded like before we buried it under the sounds of wheels. I wanted to find out if the harshness of city noise is inevitable or optional. And what I learned is, even a landscape crowded with people,with shops, with dueling bands, can be quiet enough that when the church bells start to go off, even the birds stop what they're doing and cock their heads to listen.
Headed next: The Northwest Passage, on the trail of the Franklin Expedition. In 1845, Sir John Franklin and a crew of 128 went into Canada's arctic, looking for a shortcut to China. They were never seen again. A story I've been obsessed about for years: what does the end of the world -- both geographically and philosophically -- look like?
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