We are really being spoilt for entries from new entrants to our travel writing competition this year. The latest is a very evocative travel story from  Sourabha Rao.

Read and enjoy Himalaya – Retellings here.

Our latest entrant to the 4th Annual Travel Stories Competition was introduced by another contributor and I am really pleased to be able to feature this first entry from Valerie Fletcher Adolph.

Enjoy her fascinating travel story  TO MARRY A MOCKINGBIRD? here.

Our latest entry is from another newcomer to our competition, Swatilekha Roy.

Enjoy her fabulous travel story Riding a Shikara here.

It is my real pleasure to welcome back another of our most supportive contributors, Syd Blackwell. Enjoy his latest travel story THE LAST FLIGHT OF AIR SIAM here. 

Syd Blackwell

I was born in a little ski town that used to be a gold mining town in the mountains of southeastern British Columbia.  I also lived on the coast, on Vancouver Island, in the north, and even in northern Alberta for a decade.   I visited every province and territory in Canada, and more than 40 other countries.  I was an educator, an innkeeper, and an assisted living facilitator.  My life was rich with experiences before I left Canada less than two months before my 61st birthday.
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Uruguay, has been our home for more than a decade.  My wife and I share our home with our five dogs. And quite a few visitors.   We have found time in our retirement to do things we never seemed to find time to do before.   I have found time to be a writer and an artist.  Both give me great pleasure.  We have continued to travel, particularly in South America.

We are getting a wonderful variety of entries in our June competition. The latest entry is the fourth this year from Robyn Boswell. Many thanks for all your support Robyn.

Read her latest travel story Tackling the Tanami Track here.

​Robyn Boswell - New Zealand

I’ve enjoyed travelling far and wide around the world, but I would much rather spend time in wild places or out at sea than in crowded civilization. In 1986 my sister and her Australian husband sold their house in Melbourne and bought a Landcruiser, a box trailer and a load of camping gear. I took time out from my job, my Dad and I flew across the Tasman to meet them and we set out on a 20,000km, 3 month adventure through the Outback, across the Top End and down the Queensland coast back to Melbourne. It was a wonderful time, filled with numerous adventures. We planned for over a year, reading all we could about the conditions we might face and right from the start contemplated crossing the isolated Tanami Desert via the Tanami Track. It wasn’t until we actually got to the turn-off on the Stuart Highway, the main road from Adelaide to Darwin, that we finally made the decision to tackle the track.

Our latest entry in the June competition is from Mary Mae Lewis, another newcomer to our travel writing contests.

Enjoy her travel story BOOTS here.

Mary Mae Lewis 

www.author-marymaelewis.co.uk
 
Born and raised in Stoke-on-Trent in a pottery working class family, Mary Mae left home at  eighteen to train as a PE and English  teacher in South Wales; she  finished her teacher training in London and after she and her husband located to Grand Cayman where she worked as a  reporter for the island’s weekly newspaper and a copy writer/ account executive for the island’s monthly magazine, for four years, during which time she had a son .
 
She followed her husband to Malawi where he worked for two years as a technical teacher, then three years as workshop  manager on a tea estate while Mary was a part- time primary school teacher.
 
In 1981, with two more sons, the family moved back to the UK. Mary first worked as a swmming instructor then  took up learning Spanish and spent eight months in Northern Spain as a Language Assistant before gaining a Spanish degree and TEFLA teaching qualifications.
 
She taught English as a foreign language, part–time, for many years  at Staffordshire University UK, until she retired at sixty.
 
She now spends half the year in Spain, where she does most of her writing, and half  the year in England.
 
She has been published in the THE TELEGRAPH, is a pubished poet and author of one published novel “Where There’s a Will, There’s a Woman.” Another is in the pipe line!
 
She has entered the TOO WRITE  short story competition, held as part of the Stoke-on-Trent Literary Festival every year since it’s inception, four years ago, and this year she has been shortlisted for a prize. The winners and awards are to be announced on Monday 11th June 2018.
 
Besides reading and writing Mary Mae enjoys buying and selling antiques, delving into local history, going to the theatre and cinema, gardening and meeting up with old friends.
 
She also loves travelling, and with a brother in Australia, one son in the USA and another in Serbia she has no shortage of ideas of where to go!
 
Mary has always been a prolific letter writer and diary keeper and uses her personal experiences to weave into fiction.

It is a pleasure to feature another newcomer and the youngest ever contributor to any of our travel writing contests, Parishka Gupta.

Enjoy her travel story For the love of cities here.

The next year, her English teacher appreciated and encouraged her writing skills. Parishka is also interested in writing poetry. Her teacher also helped her in publishing one of her pieces in the Times of India Student Edition.

Parishka went on to win them Sverdlovsk Regional Public Children's Organization "Lotsman" (Russia) twice in a row. She also has a travel blog of her own which is just the beginning - ilovetraveliting.weebly.com.
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She now wishes to grow up to become a freelance travel writer and travel the world.​
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A warm welcome back to Helen Bing with her second entry in this year's competition.

Enjoy her latest travel story Pago Pago here.

It is an honour to welcome our latest newcomer, Madeline Sharples, to the 4th Annual Travel Stories Competition. It is also the first entry this year to be written as poetry.

Read and enjoy Madeline's A Travel Story in Poems here.

​Madeline Sharples is the author of, Leaving the Hall Light On: A Mother’s Memoir of Living with Her Son’s Bipolar Disorder and Surviving His Suicide, in prose and poetry (Dream of Things). She also co-authored Blue-Collar Women: Trailblazing Women Take on Men-Only Jobs (New Horizon Press), co-edited the poetry anthology, The Great American Poetry Show, Volumes 1, 2, and 3, and wrote the poems for two photography books, The Emerging Goddess and Intimacy (Paul Blieden, photographer). Her poems have appeared online and in print magazines and journals. Madeline’s articles have appeared on the Huffington Post, Naturally Savvy, PsychAlive, Aging Bodies, and Open to Hope websites. She also posts at her blog, Choices (madelinesharples.com). She is currently working on a novel. 

It is a pleasure to welcome another newcomer to our travel writing contests. The third entry in the June Travel Stories Competition is from Joe Dodkins. Read and enjoy his travel story Travelling: Mishaps and All here.