President’s Message
Hello Members, I hope that, in spite of not being able to travel, you have managed to spend your quarantine time productively. I know many of us are disappointed about having to cancel trips, and I hope that at least you might be able to travel local. There’s lots of great sites to see around BC that you could write about. As soon as we are able to meet we’ll try and arrange some meet-ups, whether we do them on Zoom at first or eventually can meet in moderate groups, we will keep you informed. Meanwhile, pass your time the best you can. Keep writing and dreaming about future trips, Sincerely, Ruth Kozak – President BCATW
Travel in the New Normal
Two BCATW members, Mary Charleson and Barbara Cameron, recently collaborated on a thought leadership article about the future of travel in the wake of the Covid-19 global pandemic. “How Contact Tracing Could Help Us Travel Again” provides a comprehensive traveller’s guide to contact tracing. The two travel writers were grappling with how to balance public health and stimulate the travel industry and national economies all at the same time while a global pandemic is still sweeping across our borders.
Mary Charleson has been a marketing consultant, speaker and writer at Five Minute Marketing for the last 20 years. Since launching Carry On Queen in 2018, a travel content site for female adventure travelers over 50, she recently merged her two passions through writing, consulting and speaking about how the travel industry will recover from the pandemic. Barbara Cameron was formerly a business analyst on the global IT team for Colliers International, where she gained expertise in personal data privacy principles and security. Prior to that she travelled to 17 countries over 6 continents for a year abroad as a travel photographer and writer. Barbara now leads a food and travel photography website.
The Other Side of Vegas
Yep, Las Vegas sure is brassy and loud – we popped in last January before the pandemic – but there’s another part of the city that’s worth checking out. The locals call it 18b, the Arts District, an 18 block enclave of galleries and studios sandwiched between the northern end of the Strip and old downtown. The area is anchored at one end by the Arts Factory, a warehouse containing over 20 studios from which the artists sell their work, and at the other, Container Park, a collection of coffee shops and boutiques housed in re-purposed shipping containers. At night, the Park’s sculpted preying mantis spews fire. Meanwhile, antique stores, vintage clothing emporiums and craft beer outlets line the nearby wide, sun-baked streets. The District’s artisanal restaurants are worth the trip in themselves. The area is quiet, peaceful, devoid of crowds and best of all, free of those ubiquitous slot machines. – John Thomson
The QueryLetter Writing Contest
This writing contest is all about book blurbs. The twist? We want blurbs about completely made-up, nonexistent books. Get creative! Let your imagination go wild—and who knows? You may be inspired to turn your blurb into a novel of your own one day.
We will award one prize of $500 to the best blurb.
The submitted blurbs will be judged by our team of query letter writers based on how effectively they hook readers, taking into account the writing style and the overall impression.
Contest details at QueryLetter. Good luck everyone!
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