I have a passion for proving women can go anywhere, do anything, be anyone they want! I’ve lived in, worked in, and explored more than 20 countries, traveling by foot, train, truck, bus, boat, camel, donkey cart, and motorcycle. I’m an award-winning creative nonfiction writer and a former National Motorcycle Instructor. My writing has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, Cosmopolitan, Far Eastern Economic Review, Travelers’ Tales, and more. I'm a Hedgebrook Writers’ Colony alumna and hold a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Indiana University and a master’s degree in creative nonfiction writing from Sarah Lawrence College.Untethered: A Woman’s Search for Self on the Edge of India—A Travel Memoiris my first book.
I wrote...
Untethered: A Woman’s Search for Self on the Edge of India
Despite never having ridden a motorcycle in her life, journalist C.L. Stambush impulsively buys a Royal Enfield Bullet and sets out on a 7,000-mile, 5-month solo journey around the Subcontinent to discover her true grit.
Fraught with danger and near-death experiences, she encounters ominous men, confronts culture clashes, and narrowly escapes homicidal drivers. Along the way, she crashes her motorcycle, loses her camera, her way, and her self-control—crossing lines she never imagined possible.
I love how this book begins, with Robyn Davidson arriving in the middle of nowhere with a half-baked plan to buy some camels and trek solo across the Outback. In this 1970s yet classic journey she has no knowledge of (cantankerous) camels and has never undertaken such a challenging trek through hostile terrain. Yet, her unwavering belief that she can do something others don’t think she can or should, inspired me the most. Women are so much more capable than we are given credit for.
A revised, reissued fortieth anniversary edition of this prize-winning, bestselling account of one woman's solo journey across 1,700 miles of Australian Outback
'I experienced that sinking feeling you get when you know you have conned yourself into doing something difficult and there's no going back.' So begins Robyn Davidson's perilous journey across 1,700 miles of hostile Australian desert to the sea with only four camels and a dog for company.
Enduring sweltering heat, fending off poisonous snakes and lecherous men, chasing her camels when they get skittish and nursing them when they are injured, Davidson emerges as an extraordinarily courageous…
This search for self is a beautiful blend of an inner/outer journey story. In her narrative, Cheryl Strayed is at times physically, emotionally, and metaphorically lost in her 1,100-mile solo hike. She naively takes on the trek to find herself after her mother’s death and to escape her drug-fueled marriage. Her pack is big and heavy. Her shoes are new. Her experience is non-existent. Yet, she perseveres mile after lonely mile; each step teaching her she is more capable than she imagined.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A powerful, blazingly honest memoir: the story of an eleven-hundred-mile solo hike that broke down a young woman reeling from catastrophe—and built her back up again.
At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother’s death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life. With no experience or training, driven only by blind will, she would hike more than a thousand miles of the Pacific Crest Trail from the…
I love all the characters Dervla Murphy meets in her 3,000-mile journey. This is a fascinating read that reveals what it is like for a woman to be alone during a time and place it was considered too dangerous for women (1963). She is rewarded with hospitality, not hostility. She endures frigid cold nights, sleeping on the side of the road, and starvation. Through her narrative diary style, readers get a glimpse of the cultures along the way and an understanding of what it was like for her as a young woman alone on the road. I found her and her journey inspiring.
Braving hunger, heat exhaustion, unbearable terrain and cultures largely untouched by civilization, Dervla Murphy chronicles her determined trip through nine countries, through snow and ice in the mountains and miles of barren land in the scorching desert. Full Tilt is a highly individual account by a celebrated travel writer based on the daily diary Murphy kept while riding through Yugoslavia, Persia, Afghanistan, over the Himalayas to Pakistan and into India. Murphy's charm and gracious sensitivity as a writer and a traveler reveals not only civilizations of exotic people and places but the wonder of a woman alone on an extraordinary…
Talk about a woman taking on a challenge to prove she can do it! Tori Murden McClure sails across the Atlantic Ocean in a 23-foot wooden rowboat. This is an immersive read, in which I felt what she felt as she powers the boat by human strength. Despite no real human interaction once she is on the water, McClure brings her experiences to life (she has to start over after going 3,000 miles) by narrating the journey in such detail that I was there with her. I personally find the open ocean terrifying and was grateful to have the “experience” without having to actually experience it.
When mapmakers of the distant past came to the end of the known world, they would inscribe 'Here There Be Sea Monsters.' When Tori McClure attempted to row solo across the Atlantic Ocean in a 23-foot plywood boat with no motor or sail, she had no comprehension of the size of the monsters she would find. In deep solitude and perilous conditions, McClure was a loner determined to prove what one person with a mission can do. When she is finally brought to her knees by the worst hurricane season in the history of the North Atlantic, she must signal…
A story about a white, 24-year-old woman traveling alone in a country where some still practice cannibalism begs to be read. Kira Salak sets out solo in a dugout canoe in Papua New Guinea simply to prove a woman can go anywhere and do anything she wants. In her narrative, she describes the people and wildlife she encounters vividly. I learned a thing or two about hippopotami and concluded I don’t want to run into any in the wild. While she explores her inner thoughts, family life, and what compelled her to do such a thing, it is her physical journey that propelled me to keep reading. I wanted to know what happened next!
Following the route taken by British explorer Ivan Champion in 1927, and amid breathtaking landscapes and wildlife, Salak traveled across this remote Pacific island-often called the last frontier of adventure travel--by dugout canoe and on foot. Along the way, she stayed in a village where cannibalism was still practiced behind the backs of the missionaries, met the leader of the OPM--the separatist guerrilla movement opposing the Indonesian occupation of Western New Guinea--and undertook an epic trek through the jungle.
The New York Times said "Kira Salak is tough, a real-life Lara Croft." And Edward Marriott, proclaimed Four Corners to be…
I have always loved reading and its ability to take you far away to a distant time and place and lift you up. As a kid, I never left the house without a book, and the ones that made me laugh were my go-to's. I believe the ability to make people laugh is a truly special talent, especially while making the text relatable, so the reader’s always asking, wow, what would I do in that situation? My readers often tell me that my writing sounds just like me, which is wonderful because there’s no need to pretend. You will always know what you’ll get with me!
A heart-warming and hilarious novel about the highs and lows of marriage, fraud, and goat’s cheese.
Libby Popovic is a country girl who’s now living a golden life in Bondi with her confident financier husband Ludo, and their two children. When Ludo is jailed for financial fraud, and Libby’s friends and family lose tens of thousands of dollars as a result, she feels agonisingly complicit.
Matters go from atrocious to worse when her possessions and home are repossessed, Libby is sacked, and a priceless family heirloom is wrecked. While camping out at the family goat farm, Libby must re-evaluate her life choices. How will she crawl out of financial ruin? Can she make amends? And can she save her family from falling apart?
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