A warm welcome to Paul Spadoni, a newcomer to our travel writing competitions, with his evocative entry Ubiquitous evening passeggiata a vivid reflection of Italian lifestyle. You can read his story here.

Paul Spadoni

​From the author: Where you come from is part of who you are, and I’m currently embracing my roots. I’m Italian-American, and I divide my time between Italy and America and sometimes work as an author and free lance journalist. My first travel memoir, An American Family in Italy: Living La Dolce Vita without Permission, is scheduled for publication in June of 2017. I also write a blog: Living (with) abroad in Tuscany.
 

Bio
 
Hi I'm Phil Canning and at present I'm residing in Manchester in the sunny North West. I grew up in Dublin before moving to Germany where I lived for more than 8 years and what wonderful times they were too. Then for one reason or another....and to this day I'm still not sure why....I moved to Manchester to get a proper job!!!!.....Redundancy arrived and set me free again so I moved to Spain where I bought a 160 year old ramshackle Casa del Pueblo in a small village in Extremadura which is very quiet and way off the map!!.... Unfortunately the economic crisis arrived just after me and eventually it was back to Manchester and yet another proper job....So for now the house is a bolt hole for when tranquillity is required.... but one day it will be for good.

It is a great pleasure to welcome back Jill Stoking, who came third overall in last year's Travel Story competition, with her entry THE PACKAGE HOLIDAY VIRGIN.  If you missed it then please catch up with it here.  Then you can sit back and enjoy Jill's latest entry THE HILLS ARE ALIVE WITH THE SOUND OF SCREAMING here.
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As there has been a lull in entries for the 2017 Travel Story Competition, I hope you don't mind if I share one of my own stories. Please note that this will not be entered into the competition itself, but I would appreciate your feedback once you have read it. 

40 years ago this month I set off on my travels for the first time.

In July 1976 I had spent two weeks on holiday in Es Cana, Ibiza with three mates. The plan to go to Ibiza had evolved over a period of months but it was over before we knew it. We were already planning to return for the start of the 1977 season by the time we left. In the end I was the only one who made it.

You can read my story Back in Ibiza 1977 here.

For the next week we are running a 99p/99c promotion for the e-book version of my father’s memoirs - Exclusive Pedigree: My life in and out of the Brethren by John L. Fear.

If you have a spare minute could you please support our Headtalker campaign, which is running until tomorrow (April 13th), by following this link: https://headtalker.com/?p=104828

You can also get your bargain copy of Exclusive Pedigree here.

Many thanks for your continued support.

Our latest entrant, Anna Coates, is a very welcome newcomer to our travel writing competitions. Anna's travel story To Berlin is from her upcoming book Eagle in the fridge. She is hoping to release her book later this year under the pen name Zenta Brice.

Anna Coates
I’m Soviet born journalist, now enjoying life of rural France along with two cats, two dogs, two children and a husband. 
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It is great to be able to feature another story from the winner of our 2015 travel story competition, Kelly Reising.

​Enjoy her latest entry The Lure of Travel Planning here. 

Kelly Reising is a Beauty Editor and Author who has written a book on the subject of skincare and makeup called “Lifetips 101 Makeup Tips.” Now as the owner of a successful copywriting business, she helps a variety of clients with their content marketing needs. She is an expert guru on all things beauty and style, and her most recent piece on “Essential Oils” was for a well known lifestyle magazine. You can follow her daily musings on Twitter @kellyreising. 

It's great to be able to feature another wonderful entry from Syd Blackwell, but this one is a little different. You may remember the three poems that he entered in last year's Travel Highlights competition and last month's fantastic poetic story On Indian Trains.

For this month's competition he has written a travel story about his time in Bali back in 1977 and it is a wonderful read. Thank you Syd for the great variety you are bringing to our competitions. You can read his story RED SHOES here.

Syd Blackwell

I lived in British Columbia, Canada´s western province, for most of my life. I was a teacher, and a college employee (various roles - instruction, recruitment, promotion, counselling, research), before re-inventing myself as an innkeeper. I designed and had built my B&B inn in Revelstoke, which I operated for nine years. At age 60, my wife and I retired to Uruguay, where we have lived for more than a decade. Innside Stories is my first published book. I have extensive writing experience in Canada, and in Uruguay, I wrote 75 articles for a now defunct online magazine called Ola Uruguay. We live in Villa Argentina, a suburb of Atlántida, on the coast of Uruguay. We have five dogs.

Link: Innside Stories: Anecdotes from Wintergreen Inn 1995-2004

It is a great honour to welcome back Susan Mellsopp with her second entry in this year's Travel Story competition. If you haven't read Susan's very touching first travel story In Flanders Fields, then you can find it here.  I hope you enjoy reading her latest entry Trip in Venice as much as I have.  You can read it here.

Susan Mellsopp is a recently retired Archivist and accessible transport researcher. She has written all her life but is now able to indulge in her passion full time.
She lives in New Zealand with her retired guide dog Chocolat and working dog Jay. Susan also loves to travel, reads voraciously, enjoys cooking and classical music.
 
This story is intended to show some of the hilarious and not so funny happenings when one travels solo with a vision impairment. 
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It is a great pleasure to welcome back Sine Thieme with her second entry in this year's Travel Story competition. If you missed her first story, A New Dawn at the Bottom of the Globe, you can catch up with it here.  Then you can enjoy her Road Trip through Europe, circa 1970 here.
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Eva Melusine Thieme is the author of the travel memoir Kilimanjaro Diaries as well as the blog Joburg Expat, where she writes about her family’s adventures while living in South Africa. This essay is an excerpt from a first draft of her memoir about the life of an American expat family in Johannesburg. To learn more – and to learn the identity of the night-screaming creature – visit www.joburgexpat.com.

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