Description
This webinar took place on Wednesday 29th November 2023. You can buy the recording and shared resources/feature selected by the editors by adding this webinar to your basket.
NOTE: Anyone who registers for any webinar will receive a recording and any resources within one week of the live session.
What IS a good piece of travel writing? What makes a really great (even award-winning) travel feature, one that editors love and want more of? Why do some writers get re-commissioned over and over again? Essentially, why do some features ‘pop’ while others fall a little flat?
In this session, deputy head of travel at The Guardian, Jane Dunford; travel journalist and Lonely Planet digital commissioning editor, Daniel Fahey; travel journalist, former Wanderlust editor and host of the Wander Woman Travel Podcast, Phoebe Smith; Wanderlust sustainability editor, travel journalist and author of The Responsible Traveller, Karen Edwards; and freelance travel journalist and senior editor at Adventure.com Meera Dattani talked in-depth about how to write travel features that ‘sing’. The discussion also included a Q&A.
This was the second in a series of webinars curated and hosted by travel journalist and editor Meera Dattani in collaboration with Talking Travel Writing, the Substack newsletter that promises to demystify the travel media for freelancers forging a career in travel writing. Follow them on Twitter.
Panellist bios
Jane Dunford is Deputy Head of Travel at The Guardian and has been a travel writer and editor for over 20 years, contributing to various publications, from trade titles to newspapers and glossy magazines. She’s an advocate for sustainable, ethical travel and passionate about wild, remote places.
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Daniel Fahey is a writer, editor, journalist and lecturer whose work has appeared in the Independent, the Telegraph, Time Out, and National Geographic, among others. Fahey has also worked in-house at Lonely Planet where he commissioned guidebooks and articles as a Destination Editor and later identified and developed writing talent as a Content Sources Manager. Today, Fahey works as a freelancer, and commissions and edits digital articles for Lonely Planet.
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Phoebe Smith is an adventurer and award-winning presenter, broadcaster, author, photographer and host of the Wander Woman Travel Podcast. With a focus on regenerative travel, wildlife conservation and adventure, she is the current Sustainability Travel Writer of the Year. She is also the co-author of The Travel Writer’s Field Guide and co-founder of the #WeTwo Foundation, a charity that changes the lives of underprivileged young people using the tool of adventure.
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Karen Edwards is a freelance travel journalist, lifestyle and entertainment writer, sustainability editor at Wanderlust magazine, and author of The Responsible Traveller. For the last 13 years, she has written extensively about travel, wildlife conservation, sustainable living and culture, and she has been been contributing advice and mentorships as Senior Journalist for JournoResources since 2021.
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Meera Dattani is a freelance travel and culture journalist, senior editor at digital publication Adventure.com and founder of Travel Writing Webinars, with bylines in Wanderlust, Evening Standard, Telegraph and others. Former Chair and Events Director of the British Guild of Travel Writers, she is also a speaker and moderator on external panels about travel writing and the travel industry.
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