Catherine Watson
Catherine Watson, a pioneer in voiced travel writing for newspapers, was the senior travel editor at the Minneapolis Star Tribune and its chief travel columnist from 1978 to 2004. Her book, Roads Less Traveled-Dispatches From the Ends of the Earth (www.itascabooks.com, 2005), is a collection of her best travel pieces, spanning 30 years and seven continents. Watson's writing has been anthologized in Tuesday in Tanzania (New Rivers Press, 1997), and in four collections published by Travelers' Tales: A Woman's World (1996), A Woman's Passion for Travel (2000), Turkey (2002), and A Woman's Europe (2004). Her honors include the two most prestigious awards in her field: the Lowell Thomas Travel Journalist of the Year and the Society of American Travel Writers (SATW) Photographer of the Year. She is the only journalist to have won both of these awards.Watson's previous book, Travel Basics (Star Tribune, 1984), a collection of travel advice, received the Silver Award for Books in the national Lowell Thomas competition and was named Best Book by SATW's Central States. In 1994, Watson received the Minnesota Associated Press Sweepstakes award for a first-person narrative about sexual assault. The Star Tribune article entitled ``Attack,'' received more than 1,200 responses from readers. In 2004, she received a Jerome Foundation Travel/Study Grant that allowed her to travel to England to research a historical travel memoir.. Watson lives in the Twin Cities and is restoring a 1869 house in Galena, Illinois.

How and why did you become a writer?
I think I couldn't help it. I had written from childhood on -- I began keeping a journal at age nine -- but growing up, it never occurred to me that "writer'' was something to "be.'' What I always intended to be was an archaeologist, until I spent a college summer working on a dig in Lebanon. I realized that what I really wanted wasn't archaeology or even anthropology. It was the adventure of travel. I settled on journalism because it was the only field where all my eclectic interests came in handy. Happily, the Minneapolis Star Tribune agreed and hired me, eventually making me the founding editor of the Travel section. I spent the next 26 years as a travel writer, photographer, and editor there.

In which literary forms do you most often work?
Nonfiction. Creative nonfiction, as it gets called these days or, even catchier, literary journalism. For me, that means all the sub-genres of memoir, including personal essay and travel memoir.

Who are some of your favorite writers?
Tony Horwitz, especially his ``Confederates in the Attic.'' John McPhee. Peter Matthiessen. Lawrence Durrell's travel writing. Margaret Atwood's short, biting essays. Pico Iyer. Ian Frazier. Patricia Hampl, on Prague and on St. Paul. Ernest Hemingway, who could chisel a sentence better than anyone I've ever read. And Richard Halliburton, a traveler whose insouciant, non-literary writing captivated me the way it had my parents' generation. (Hemingway, by the by, loathed him.) 

How would you define a successful work of literature?
Does it move the reader? Does it make the reader care? Does it have depth? I mean layers that the reader can come back to, over time, and continue to explore for meaning.

What are the most rewarding parts of the writing process for you? What are the most difficult?
I love solving literary puzzles: What's the best way to tell this? What are the most meaningful incidents? The best word? I'm happiest when I'm fully in the process -- when I know where I'm going and what shape the tale will take. Then writing is like drinking the sky, and I could do it forever.

The most difficult part? Starting. I procrastinate because I know how much work there'll be and because I'm afraid of failing. But that's corrosive: The more I wait to start, the less I think I'm able to write at all.

In which parts of the world have you lived?
I was born, grew up, and still live in Minnesota's Twin Cities. I've lived in Germany, Lebanon, Argentina, Costa Rica, Illinois and, most recently, England, where I spent the spring of 2004 researching a book in London. That list isn't the whole picture, though. I've traveled in more than 100 countries and made enough visits to Mexico, Honduras, and Paris that I count them as places I've lived, albeit only serially.

Which literary forms do you prefer to work on with clients?
Memoir and travel, but I will work with writers in any branch of nonfiction, including history and biography.

How much and what kinds of background or experience would you expect your clients to have?
I want them to be comfortable with English and to have a good grasp of -- or at least great respect for -- its grammar and punctuation. Beyond that, they need to be open to suggestions and to have insight into their motives: What do you want to say? Why and to whom?  What is your goal?

Do you have some ground rules that you would expect clients to follow?
I am unwilling to work with someone who wants to advance a political or religious agenda in the guise of memoir. And I won't be -- am not qualified as -- a psycho-therapist. The process of writing can indeed be healing, but any struggle with deep, underlying issues belongs to the writer alone. I can address only how the writer writes about that struggle. Does the writing work or not, and how can it work better?

What advice would you offer prospective clients as they consider choosing a mentor?
Choose someone whose work you like and whose voice speaks to you.