Travel Essays Pack Humor and Insight

Geography Lessons

Wanderlust has given Jennifer Carol Cook more than a well-stamped passport and a stack of photos. The assistant professor of English has landed a place in three consecutive editions of The Best Women’s Travel Writing.

She calls the initial opportunity to appear in the 2007 collection of essays “serendipitous.” A friend recommended submitting her work, even though Cook had never before published a travel-oriented piece.

“I wrote about my stay at a monastery in the Arizona desert and sent it to the dreaded ‘slush pile,’” says Cook, who holds a PhD from Brandeis University. “After almost a full year, the editor contacted me and said, ‘I think your story is beautiful.’ To have that validation was fantastic — and I’ve just kept writing them.”

Humorous and thought-provoking, her subsequent essays focus on a rainy-day trip to Eilean Donan, one of Scotland’s most famous castles; and on the experience of visiting the romantic city of Venice — solo.

While on the road, Cook uses “idea journals” to record sensory details that will become the basis for her narratives. “These are kind of frac- tured notes about anything that strikes me . . . maybe a smell or a color, or some bizarre snip- pet of conversation,” she explains. “It’s these things I have to get down immediately or they’ll be gone.”

Then she lets the details percolate. “Sometimes you know there’s a story right away, and some- times it takes awhile to unfold in your brain. But as long as I have all that raw material, I can go back and create it even years later.”

Writing and travel have much in common according to Cook, who joined the Bentley faculty in 2004. “Both are about taking risks and going on strange journeys where you don’t know where you’ll end up. In order to succeed at either, you can’t be the type of person who insists on knowing everything beforehand or tries to control too much.”

The anthology puts Cook in good company. Her work has appeared alongside that of Barbara Kingsolver (The Poisonwood Bible), Frances Mayes (Under the Tuscan Sun) and Diane Johnson (Le Divorce).

Getting to know other local writers featured in the series has been a bonus. “They have been so generous with support and advice,” says Cook. “These women have done courageous things and are fascinating people in addition to being great writers.”