Mississippi Rift, Best American Travel Writing (RIP), Counting Everyone and more
Hello all!
It’s been a long while since I sent out any updates. As you know, it’s been a long year, which I hope has been good to you in some ways. But time is clipping along, and I finally have a few new stories to share.
Thanks everyone. I hope you enjoy these. Take care!
Frank
BEST AMERICAN TRAVEL WRITING (RIP)
First of all, I was very happy that my story, Exploring the Polar Bear Capital of the World, was chosen for the Notable Travel Writing list in the Best American Travel Writing 2021. Sadly, however, a hedge fund bought the collection’s publisher and decided the title wasn’t profitable enough. As a result 2021 will be the last edition.
For those of us in the writing business, big change nothing new, but this is one of the sadder ones. The Best American alway showcased great, obscure, artful work and gave those early in their careers a big boost, at it did for me in 2004, when Pico Iyer picked my story Test Day out of the blue.
Since then, I’ve been lucky: I had one other story in the anthology and ten others on “Notable” lists. It’s always a nice bit of wind in one’s sails, and I will miss the anthology for many reasons. But I also feel lucky to have lived through what may have been a golden era for narrative travel writing that explored our fast-globalizing world.
Hats off to my friends, Jim Benning, who made the anthology this year, as well as Doug Mack and Tom Swick, who made the 2021 Notable list.
Mississippi Rift: The Story Behind the Mississippi River Paddling Record
I have a new story out at Outside Magazine, which I’ve been working on for almost three years. It’s about the quest to break an 18-year-old record for paddling down the Mississippi River. Last spring I served as support crew for one of two teams trying to break that record of just over 18 days to make it down all 2350 miles of the Mississippi. We had quite a few close calls along the way (the crew at the canoe), as did other team. You can read about those here: The Epic Battle to Break the Mississippi River Canoe Record.
If you’re interested, I also put together a History of the record progression here, and a list of other great stories about the Mississippi River and canoeing.
Counting Everyone, Saving Seeds, How to be Creative and More: Essays & Stories
Here are a few other pieces out since the last update, including one about a day in the life of a census taker (me), a piece on seed saving, another on friendship and loneliness, and a couple about our visit to the monarch migration in the mountains of Mexico:
Counting everyone so everyone counts: A day in the life of a census taker (Minnesota Reformer)
Free Your Mind: On Creativity and Genius (Rotary Magazine)
A Growing Movement: Seed saving is part of our history—and our future (Minnesota Conservation Volunteer Magazine)
That's what friends are for: On Loneliness and Belonging (Rotary Magazine)
Advanced in years: On the Tyranny of Youth (Rotary Magazine)
What the Midwest Means (Essay Daily)
Invisible Links: On our Invisible Connections (Rotary Magazine)
Witnessing Mexico’s Great Monarch Migration (Artful Living Magazine)
The Butterfly Effect: Restoring the Migration Route (Rotary Magazine)
Running & Coaching
I’m also still building my coaching business at Kimbia Koaching. This year, I helped Bridgit train for her successful run of the Moose Mountain Trail Marathon on the Superior Hiking Trail, and got another runner to his first-ever marathon at the Twin Cities Marathon, which he successfully completed, despite never having run more than a half marathon and having major injury history.
It’s also been really fun to watch both our daughters run cross country this year, and to bump into my old teammates and college friends at meets watching their kids. It all comes around.
But in Year II of the Pandemic, it’s clear that running is something that can still bring us together, which was the gist of this story, out early in the year: