BIO

Shannon McKenna Schmidt and Joni Rendon are freelance writers who share a passion for reading and travel.

Shannon’s work has appeared in National Geographic Traveler, Arrive, New Jersey Monthly, Pages, and on Bookreporter.com, and she is a regular contributor to Shelf Awareness (www.shelf-awareness.com) and ReadingGroupGuides.com. She spent ten years working in the book publishing industry, most recently as Marketing Manager at Simon & Schuster. Shannon lives in Hoboken, New Jersey.

Joni’s work has appeared in National Geographic Traveler, Travel + Leisure, Continental, Pages, BookPage, The Writer and on Literarytraveler.com. She is a contributing writer at Bookreporter.com and Focus Magazine for Expatriates. Prior to launching her freelance writing career, she spent ten years in marketing and editorial in the book publishing industry at Ballantine, The Random House Trade Group, Bloomsbury, and Hyperion Books, where she was Assistant Director of Marketing. Joni holds a masters degree from Cambridge University and currently resides in London, England.

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AUTHOR TALK

May 23, 2008

Freelance writers and bibliophiles Shannon McKenna Schmidt and Joni Rendon recently published NOVEL DESTINATIONS, a literary-inspired travel guide that covers over 500 book- and author-related landmarks in the U.S. and Europe. In this interview, the authors describe how their shared interests and mutual backgrounds prompted this collaborative effort, and explain why they chose to focus on sites linked to classics instead of more contemporary works. They also share their personal favorite literary hotspots, highlight some of the behind-the-scenes anecdotes covered in the book, and discuss ideas for future joint projects.

Question: How did you come to write NOVEL DESTINATIONS?

Shannon McKenna Schmidt and Joni Rendon: NOVEL DESTINATIONS brings together two interests we’re both passionate about: reading and travel. The idea for the book first occurred to us during one of our Transatlantic phone calls. Shannon and her family had just returned from visiting Louisa May Alcott’s home in Massachusetts and Joni was getting ready for a literary weekend in Dublin, once home to James Joyce and other writers.

We realized that we were probably not the only ones who seek out these kinds of places during our travels and that there might be the kernel of an idea for a book there, but it was the following year when we took our first literary trip together to Brontë Country that the concept really began to take shape. Shannon flew to England, and we drove from London up to the Yorkshire Moors, most famously immortalized in Emily Bronte’s WUTHERING HEIGHTS. There, we visited the Brontë Parsonage Museum where the three Brontë sisters lived for most of their short lives, took a literary-themed walking tour of the town, rambled along the moors, and even stayed at a bed-and-breakfast that was once home to the Brontës’ physician. While we were doing all of this, it struck us that we would love to have a book that would take us to other literary sites like Steinbeck country in California or Dostoevsky’s St. Petersburg.

Q: How did you two meet and come to collaborate on the book?

SMS & JR: Actually, NOVEL DESTINATIONS partly owes its existence to Bookreporter.com’s own Carol Fitzgerald, a mutual friend of ours. We had both left the book publishing industry to pursue freelance writing, and Carol arranged an introduction because she thought maybe we could help each other out. It turns out she was right!

At the time we met, we lived down the street from each other in Hoboken, New Jersey and had probably passed each other a dozen times without knowing it. It also turned out that we had held the same job at the same company a few years apart. In a way, it felt like us becoming friends was sort of fated, and the only strange thing is that we didn’t cross paths sooner. We were both sad when Joni moved to London, but with her being based in Europe and able to more easily research sites there it made it a much more feasible undertaking to write NOVEL DESTINATIONS, which features locations on both sides of the Atlantic.

Q: You cover more than 500 literary landmarks in the U.S. and Europe. How did you select the sites featured in the book?

SMS & JR: There are so many wonderful literary sites in the U.S. and Europe devoted to classic writers that it easily filled up the entire book. We tried to include a little bit about all of them because we just couldn’t bear to leave any of them out, much to our editor’s chagrin. One thing we did decide early on in the research process was that, as opposed to focusing on contemporary literary sites, like, say, THE DA VINCI CODE trail or Frank McCourt’s Limerick from ANGELA'S ASHES, we wanted to draw attention to classic books and authors. Nowadays, there’s always a new “must-read” book of the moment and less conversations about the classics.

Q: Why did you choose not to write more of a traditional travel guide?

SMS & JR: NOVEL DESTINATIONS is very much armchair travel. Our goal was that, even if a person can’t or doesn’t want to visit the sites in person, they can still take a tour-by-proxy. We wanted to go beyond what readers could already find in traditional guidebooks. Rather than simply guiding readers to literary sites, we focus on the behind-the-scenes stories and anecdotes about the writers and the places.

For example, Ernest Hemingway often lodged at the Gritti Palace hotel while visiting Venice, and there’s a great story surrounding his stay there in 1954. At the time, he was recuperating from two near-fatal plane crashes during an African safari and his death was falsely reported in headlines around the world. With typical Hemingway bravado, he sipped champagne on the hotel’s canal-side terrace while chuckling over his obituaries.

We also draw connections between classic scribes, many of whom were literary travelers themselves --- including globetrotting pals Edith Wharton and Henry James, who visited George Sand’s château during a tour of France, and Charles Dickens, who helped secure funds to preserve Shakespeare’s birthplace in Stratford-upon-Avon.

Q: What makes literary travel an interesting way to see the world?

SMS & JR: It was through the eyes of authors like Jane Austen, James Joyce, and Louisa May Alcott that we first came to know many of the places we were eventually able to visit firsthand. Just as novels can provide a new dimension to travel experiences, literary places can offer a deeper perspective on classic works of literature. For instance, touring Orchard House in Concord, Massachusetts, is as close as you can get to walking through the pages of LITTLE WOMEN. Louisa May Alcott drew heavily on her family and her home for the characters and the setting, and fans of the novel will recognize things like the trunk of costumes the March sisters used to stage their plays and the parlor where Meg got married.

But you don’t have to an avid reader to appreciate many literary locales because so often they provide a much more intimate insight into the history of a society than you can get by visiting big museums or grand palaces. And many of the sites are architecturally interesting, like the Tudor Shakespeare homes in Stratford-upon-Avon and Mark Twain’s Connecticut mansion, or they provide the opportunity to soak up magnificent landscapes, like Steinbeck’s Salinas Valley and Robert Burns Country in Scotland.

Q: Have you visited every place featured in the book?

SMS & JR: Not yet! For the author houses and museums we could not visit in person, we interviewed curators and other people at the sites, who were extremely generous in sharing their knowledge with us.

In total, between the two of us, we’ve been to a couple hundred of the sites featured in the book, including author houses, hotels, restaurants, and walking tours. And we’re working on the rest. Shannon just got back from the Robert Frost Farm in Derry, New Hampshire, and soon she’ll be heading to Key West to visit the Ernest Hemingway Home, a destination which Joni researched for the book and fell in love with.

Joni just returned from checking out Rudyard Kipling’s gorgeous Jacobean manor in the Sussex countryside because her book group is reading his novel KIM this month. Her next literary trip is to Moscow and St. Petersburg this fall, where she’ll explore the homes and haunts of Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky and Pushkin.

We’re blogging about our literary adventures on our website, www.noveldestinations.com.

Q: Did you visit any destinations together?

SMS & JR: Yes, we have visited some places together --- in the name of research, of course! Getting to travel together and experience these special places with a likeminded friend was definitely one of the most fun and rewarding aspects of partnering to write the book. We’ve been to Brontë Country and also Paris, where we got into a bit of trouble for trying to find a secret staircase at Victor Hugo’s house that was said to have been used by his mistress.

While in Paris, we made time to relax at some of the city’s famed literary cafés and also paid homage to the dozens of writers laid to rest in the awe-inspiring Père-Lachaise Cemetery. (Though we didn’t leave our lipstick prints on Oscar Wilde’s tombstone like hundreds of other zealous fans have done!) Perhaps best of all, we got to toast Shannon’s birthday together at Le Procope, a famous three-hundred-year-old restaurant where writers like Oscar Wilde, Voltaire and Hugo have dined throughout the centuries.

And whenever Joni comes back home for a visit, we always try to take in at least one New York-area literary site together, whether it’s having a burger at Pete’s Tavern, a one-time haunt of O. Henry; sipping literary-themed cocktails on the roof terrace at the charming Library Hotel; or taking in Washington Irving’s storybook, wisteria-draped cottage on the Hudson River.

Q: What is your favorite literary destination?

SMS: The Yorkshire Moors in northern England, otherwise known as Brontë Country, was one of the highlights for me. I had wanted to visit there for years since reading WUTHERING HEIGHTS as an English major in college. Another site I really enjoyed was the Château de Monte Cristo, a small castle and grounds named by Alexandre Dumas after his adventure novel THE COUNT OF MONTE-CRISTO. It’s a bit off-the-beaten-path on the outskirts of Paris but totally worth the effort to get there. It’s an interesting and imaginative place that’s reached by walking along a wooded path, through man-made caves, and past a waterfall. And I’ll always have a fondness for Orchard House, Louisa May Alcott’s home. At the time I visited with my mother, sister and niece, we ranged in age from 5 to 55, and we each came away with something from the experience.

JR: Jane Austen’s house in the small village of Chawton, England, always ranks high on my list. Most people associate Austen with the spa town of Bath, where she set two of her works, but it was actually a modest cottage in the Hampshire countryside that she held nearest and dearest to her heart. She spent the last eight years of her short life there, and it’s still full of her possessions and spirit. It’s so moving to see the tiny, three-legged writing table where she penned many of her masterpieces and the famous “creaking door” that alerted her to incoming callers so she could hide her work. Another favorite location of mine is an atmospheric stone tower outside of Dublin where James Joyce briefly stayed. Relations between him and his host had gone sour and a gunshot rang out over the author’s bed one night, causing him to flee in haste. He later wove the tower --- and elements of the incident --- into the opening scene of ULYSSES.

Q: What advice do you have for literary travelers?

SMS & JR: One of the great things about literary travel is that there are different ways you can approach it. You can specifically seek out a literary destination, like we did with Brontë Country, and build an entire trip --- from lodging to sightseeing --- around one theme. Or you can integrate literary travel into a general destination that has a literary house or museum like London or Key West. In NOVEL DESTINATIONS, we include literary-related hotels and restaurants so that travelers really getting into the spirit of things can have a well-rounded and fun experience.

While it does add an extra dimension to your visit if you’ve read the related book first, that’s definitely not essential to enjoying these places. Many of them have fascinating historical, architectural or landscape components that make them interesting places to visit, with or without the literary connection. And tour guides at the houses do a great job of educating visitors about the life and work of the author who lived there, so a visit might even inspire you to read some of their books.

Q: Where are your next adventures?

SMS & JR: We’re definitely mulling over ideas for another joint book project, since we had such a great time working together the first time around. During our travels, we became increasingly intrigued by the stories surrounding the places where famous artists found inspiration, and we made side trips to artistic places such as Monet’s house in Giverney, so there may be an ARTFUL DESTINATIONS in the future.

In the meantime, though, we’re having fun talking to people about NOVEL DESTINATIONS and hoping we reach all those like-minded bibliophiles we know are out there.

© Copyright 2008, Novel Destinations. All rights reserved.

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