Writing a Travel Memoir

Today I am chatting to Judith Gallium Pex, the author of Walk the Land: A journey on Foot Through Israel, about writing travel memoirs. Judith gives us hints and tips about how to get started, the importance of travel memoirs and how to write one which entertains and informs.

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Shelter Hostel, Eilat 

Transcript

Wendy Jones: 0:02

Hi, and welcome to the writing and marketing show brought to you by author Wendy H. Jones. This show does exactly what it says on the tin. it's jam packed with interviews, advice, hints, tips and news to help you with the business of writing. It's all wrapped up in one lively podcast. So it's time to get on with the show. And welcome to episode 166 of the writing and Marketing Show with author entrepreneur Wendy H. Jones. And it's an absolute pleasure to have you here with me again. And another episode which is coming to you from Israel and I are interviewing authors from all over the world to for the podcast this week, when I'm meeting them in Israel, and I think it's a great idea to have a multicultural aspect to the show. Today, I'm going to be interviewing Judith Galblum Pex. And I'm going to be interviewing her about writing travel memoirs, which I'm very much looking forward to. And as you will hear, Judy is a American who has settled in Israel, and it was a joy, it's going to be a joy to talk to her today. So what has been happening while I'm still here in Israel, as you can gather, I'm in a lovely shaded part of a courtyard, it's 33 degrees here in Israel on the winter sun is amazing. And I'm a real believer that you can write in a cold Scottish house in Dundee, or you can write in a shady courtyard in a lot in Israel. And that's where I'm writing from today. Although I've only got another week here, then I have to go back to Scotland, because I'm running the Scottish association of Writers Conference, which will be when this comes out. Just the week that this comes out. And I'm very much looking forward to that as well, because it's great to meet with writers, meeting with other writers is a great way of invigorating yourself of inspiring you and getting your writing module going again. So I can highly recommend it. I can highly recommend travel and I can highly recommend meeting with other writers and sharing with them and it will help you write up a storm as they say. Before I introduce the my, before I introduce my guest for today, who is Judy, then I would like to say it's an absolute pleasure to have you join me every week on the show. I love doing it for you. But it does take time out of my writing. If you could, if you'd like to support this time, you can do so by going to patreon.com forward slash Wendy H Jones. That's pa t ar e o n.com. Forward slash when the H Jones and you can support me for as little as $3 a month and it would let me know that you enjoy the show and you want me to continue doing it. So yes, I would be very grateful. So what of our guests today who is the Judy goblin packs? I hope I've said that correctly. Because you know what I'm like I can manage to get everything wrong. So what have Judy, Judith goblin packs was born in Washington DC, but it's been living in a lot Israel with her husband John since 1976 38 years ago, they began the shelter hostel, a guesthouse for travellers from all over the world, and a drop in centre for anyone searching for physical, emotional or spiritual support. And her free time Judith likes to read hike and camp in the mountains around a lot, snorkelling the red sea travel and spend time with family and friends. Judith and John are the parents of four grown children and the happy grandparents of 10 biological and to foster grandchildren. In 2005, they took a two month sabbatical which became a pivotal experience in Judy's life, and led to her writing her first book walk the land a journey on foot through Israel. In the spring of 2007 Sudanese refugees who had fled their civil war and jumped over the border between Egypt and Israel appeared on the streets of a lot. Their involvement with them led to Judi second book a people trial and smooth stories of escape from Sudan to Israel. At the urging of friends and former shelter volunteer she decided to undertake a book about the hostel, which she thought outlined, collected and she she collected stories and began to write, come stay celebrate the story of this shelter hostel in a lot Israel, and that was published in 2014. She published to belong a novel in September 2022. This tells the story of Tamar and Israeli women living in a lot with her husband Steve take two Sudanese refugees as foster children, but face opposition from all sides. The reader is introduced to characters from all walks of life and receives a picture of life in an unusual location. So without further ado, let's get on with the show. And hear from Judy. And we have Judy with us welcome Judy. How Are you today?

Judith Galblum Pex: 5:01

Well, I'm doing great. It's a gorgeous day here in the south of Israel on the Red Sea. And it's warm and sunny. Not too hot. So perfect day and I'm, yeah, I'm very happy to have Wendy here sitting next to me. It's really a privilege to finally meet in person.

Wendy Jones: 5:18

Oh, it's absolutely amazing. I mean, who wouldn't rather be sat in Eilat with the sun shining and a lovely shady courtyard in a beautiful hostel rather than sitting in Dundee? It's much better here, I have to say. And thank you, Judy, because you've agreed to talk to me about writing travel memoir, which I think I'd love to do. So, I'm excited about this today. So are you ready to, for me to interrogate you? I mean, interview you?

Judith Galblum Pex: 5:43

Yes, yes. Yes. It's, it's a passion of mine. I love to talk about writing travel memoir.

Wendy Jones: 5:48

Oh, that is great. So, we're gonna have a great time today, we really are. So your book is about hiking the Israel National Trail, and it's called Walk the land, a journey on foot through Israel. So just to get us in the mood for travel memoir, tell us about the Israel National Trail.

Judith Galblum Pex: 6:06

Well the Israel National Trail, it's probably was designed or built, put together, maybe 30 years ago, there's a famous trail in America called the Appalachian trail that goes on the East Coast of America. And a couple of Israelis walked that. And that takes about six months. And then when they came back to Israel, they thought, well, Israel should have a national, we should have our own national trail. Our country is much smaller than America. And so they got a committee. And they we had, we already had a lot of hiking trails, but they kind of put together they tried to make a content content, continual one trail by combining all the other other different trails, and they tried to make sure they go through the most beautiful places in Israel, et cetera. And they came up with this trail that's about 1000 kilometres from you can do it from north to south or south to north. And that's the Israel National Trail.

Wendy Jones: 6:57

Wow, it sounds amazing. I mean, I like walking, but I think that would be a bit too much for me, I have to say, but I think it's fantastic. And I know you did it. And that's where the book came from, which is fantastic. So I'm curious, because you did do the trail? Did you start out knowing you would write write a book about this? Or did the idea of the book come from having walked the trail? Is it what would you what would you say are the advantages and disadvantages of each approach?

Judith Galblum Pex: 7:25

I think it would have been very different. I don't think I could have done it. If I didn't know, from the beginning, that I was going to be writing this book. Because before I wrote this book, I'll tell you about later. But I'd already planned on writing we have we're sitting on the shelter hostel. That's a business ministry that my husband and I started 38 years ago. And I thought, I should write a story of this hostel. Because a lot of interesting people come by when the scene already in a few days. Yeah, but a lot of stories. So I was going to write a book about that. And then we walked on the trail, and I thought, hey, wait a minute, that sounds like a good topic for a book. So I had a notebook, a paper pen and paper, pen and a notebook. And every night, we walked about eight hours, 2025 kilometres a day. But every John would fall asleep. As soon as you know, by six o'clock, he'd be in bed. But I would get my notebook out. And I had, I'd write in my journal, what we did for the day. And so I never missed a day. And I think it would have been impossible to have written this book without without writing the journal without being intentionally writing the journal every day.

Wendy Jones: 8:30

Yeah, that's good. Because it takes me into my next question really quite nicely is, does one actually need to take detailed notes about the trip? Or would memories and photos to face and what sort of notes should you take? What sort of notes did you take?

Judith Galblum Pex: 8:46

Well, when you write the book, obviously, when you write a book like this, obviously, you don't include everything that happens, you know, so I tried to find highlights, maybe interesting people that I that I met, I read the book, by Bill Bryson. Walk in the Woods. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I like I like his, I like his writing a lot. And somehow I found it in the airport not long before I did the trail. So that book was kind of an inspiration for me. I liked the way he combined his walk, a lot of humour, people, he met some history of the Appalachian Trail, etc. So, so that's what so I think, what was the question?

Wendy Jones: 9:25

Right there? And then do you need detailed notes, or is it just your memories? Do you think detailed notes are important?

Judith Galblum Pex: 9:32

I think you don't need obviously everything, but you need some points or some things that struck you. Maybe from every day.

Wendy Jones: 9:40

Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah. Because it's, it's more highlights than every single word and we'll come to that a bit later as well. So what's the starting point for writing such a book? Apart from doing the travel, of course, you need to actually do the travel or the walk in the first instance,

Judith Galblum Pex: 9:55

Right? So, I had my journal, and when I sat down to write the book we had in those days this we did the, my husband and I did that trip 18 years ago. And it was, the world has changed quite a bit since then. Yeah, we had a little digital camera, which you couldn't, you didn't have too much memory. Yeah. And on the trail, there's not so many places to plug in, especially in the beginning. So I couldn't take too many pictures. We had a cell phone, but the coverage wasn't so good. But so but when I sat down to write the book, and we had maps, nowadays, they use apps for navigation, but we had real maps. So when I sit down in front of the computer, I had, I put all my pictures on the computer. And I looked at the picture, I looked at my journal, and I looked at the maps. And there was, there was another book that was kind of old, but it was kind of a guide for walking the trail. And that gave me some ideas. So the pictures helped the pictures helped a lot. Yeah, as well as the maps to Yeah, just to remind the journey by the our journey, by the way, took 42 days, walking, and about six, two months, from beginning to end with rest days. Yeah, so you couldn't really remember all that stuff, you know, and then days blend into each other. You couldn't remember without all the map set, the maps, the pictures, and the journal. I don't think I could have remembered that stuff.

Wendy Jones: 11:26

No, you raise a good point. Actually, I'm going to just throw this in. This has nothing to do with writing and travel memoirs. But there were some people who were planning on walking it in 35 days, yeah, here. And I just cannot imagine doing that walking every day for 35 days. And I think you raise a good point about, you know, you need to build in rest days for things as well. Because if you're writing a travel memoir, it's very easy to just go all gung ho and go yes, I'm going to write about this. So I'm going to do it all in one fell swoop. Rest is important. And I think that needs to come across in the memoir as well. That's right. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So could you give us some tips for planning a travel memoir?

Judith Galblum Pex: 12:07

Well, a lot of it has to do with the planning of your trip, your trip itself, as good planning, although if you if you have, let's say call them mistakes, or you get lost, or you you know, you have you have an injury that can get come into your travel memoir to that might be that might be a highlight of your, you know, one of the highlights of your books, the mistakes you make, you know, and my son, he told me, when I started writing, he says mom use a lot of humour. Yeah. And I liked that, that really struck with me that the tip, and also Bill Bryson used to humour, and I got to read the book of Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. And I liked the way that she sort of makes fun of herself, you know, this self deprecating humour. So I think that that's really, people identify with that, I think, at any, probably any kind of writing, and again, a memoir, but also a travelling memoir, it's good to do that. And also, I try when I did my memoir, I, I didn't want it to be just for people who are watching the Israel trail, because that would be a fairly small possible audience. I mean, they I don't know if 1000 or so many people walk a year, but they're not all going to read my book, obviously. So you I tried to make it with universal themes, and terms of facing, I'm facing a goal. And yeah, and how do we had a goal from the beginning, and accomplishing a goal? And step by step so that people who aren't walking, or yeah, they would also could identify with it. I think those are important things to remember.

Wendy Jones: 13:47

Now, that's really good. Actually, I like the fact that you're saying, you know, you need to be honest. And you also need to be, you know, bring humour in. But being honest, I think is important, because very often we will whitewash things and say, Oh, this was marvellous, and I did it. Oh, you know, I did the whole trail. And everything was wonderful when you were limping along with, you know, a sprained ankle for seven of the days or something, you know. So I liked that tip. That's very good.

Judith Galblum Pex: 14:11

Bryson, when he wrote, I keep coming back to this. Yeah. But he was sort of one of my role models, his book, but he had this guy that he was walking with an old school friends, yeah, then cats. And they didn't get along so well, sometimes. And this cats was quite, quite a funny guy. And so also, I understood that when you write a book like this, you have to exaggerate. Actually, in many writer you have to exaggerate. Because if it's an any kind of memoir, or any, even a novel, I mean, you don't just write about everything happens. Good and stuff. It has to it has to be a little bit extreme. And so I used John became sort of my cats so that the conflicts that we had between each other, that makes it humorous, and it makes it realistic. And people have come to me, and they'll say, Oh, I read your book. and instead of saying, you know, I liked the part where you, you know, climb the mountain, they'll say, you know, actually I'm like, John, and my husband is more like you. Yeah. So they really see them. They really see themselves in a relationship. And that I think I've had more comments about our relationship, even though it is sort of exaggerated. Yes. But he's been to clarify it. He's spontaneous. And I'm the planner. Yeah, no. And so you can imagine the humour, you can imagine the humour that comes from a situation like that. Yes,

Wendy Jones: 15:28

absolutely. Yeah. So, when writing a travel book, I mean, to be honest, if you travel, the landscape, the people, that culture are always vivid in the mind of the writer, you can remember it. But how do you bring this to life in the pages of a book?

Judith Galblum Pex: 15:44

Well, that's the technique. And this was the first. This was my first writing. My first writing venture. Yeah, of course, before I read this, wrote this, I read a lot of other books. Yeah. Not just Bill Bryson, I read a lot of I read books of all genres. Yeah, yeah. It's important to read all genres. And when I read a book, I see what I like, and I see what I don't like and so on. And, and I, I, the question you asked, exactly right, because I'm seeing it. They're not seeing it. I live here in the desert. How do you describe desert, but those pictures, there was one scene I remember on one picture. And we were on top of a mountain. And I'm sort of laying on the rock, and my head is my hair is blowing. And there's some clouds in the sky. And so that Toad that totally helps me is to say, You know what, and then of course, I'll put that scene because I have a good picture of it. I can't put every scene yet, but I had a good picture. And you can see that I'm tired. So I walked up a steep hill, and you can see some rocks around, and you can see the clouds in the sky. And you in this picture, you could see the Gulf of Aqaba, below us. And I could describe the colour of the water. So I'm not that imaginative to be able to without the picture. And so it all, it all came together with a pictures for me anyway.

Wendy Jones: 17:04

Yeah, I think photos are gold dust, really, because there's also something called false memory syndrome, where you think you'll remember something, but when you see the photo, you won't. That's not the way I remember it. But that's what happened. Yeah, yeah, no. So I think photos are great. I've got to assume that when writing a travel memoir, one, you're not merely to God's taking the pages of a diet and writing everything about the trip? How do you go about deciding what to put in the book?

Judith Galblum Pex: 17:32

Well, that's a good question. I think you also think about, you try to think of what what other people would find it when people would find the interesting, and the different people you want to keep it varied. I mean, if you in the beginning, you're climbing a mountain every day, you know what I mean? Yeah, that's how this trip. That's how the Israel trail is. Yeah, well, you're not going to climb Everest, you're not going to describe every single mountain you climb, because that would get that would get boring. So obviously, you have to you do try to do some, you try to include some different variety, and the different people you meet, and the characters and your field, you want to put your feelings, because you want to put you want to put how you felt and you want other people to identify with you. It's, well, you're gonna you haven't read too much of the books yet you can decide for yourself. Yeah, I've read some of it. What I've read is good. You can decide for yourself if I succeeded or not in accomplishing this purpose that I set out to accomplish.

Wendy Jones: 18:31

I'm sure you would. Well, that brings me nicely on because I want to talk about the book. Tell us about your own book about hiking the Israel National Trail.

Judith Galblum Pex: 18:46

It's called Walk the land. That's a verse from Genesis, which God told Abraham to walk the length of the land, and every place where you tried your foot tribes will be yours. So I called it walk the land, because it's also a famous expression in Hebrew. And in Israel. Everybody knows in the expression, it's a it's like a folk song. So I sort of liked that expressions. And then the subtitle is a journey on foot through Israel. And I started, I understood from reading other books. I started with a very exciting moment. And so I told that to hopefully draw people in, and a little bit about our preparation, and stuff like that. Yeah, so that's, what can I say?

Wendy Jones: 19:30

It takes you a 1000 kilometres through Israel, which is fantastic.

Unknown: 19:35

I can say that. I, John and I aren't so good at keeping recording numbers or statistics, but I'm sure at least 50 or more people have read the book and then because of reading the book, they decide to walk the trail. Wow, it's still it still happens to me that people come in. Yeah, I read your book and now I'm walking the lands and by the way, if any Somebody who's listening to this is gets interested in walking the land, walking the Israel trail, we walked it in one go. And the main times to walk or in the spring in the fall, but you don't have to walk. In one go. Many people we have, especially from abroad, people come or Israelis to, they come and they have a week, you know, we call a day or something like that two weeks holiday. So you can do whatever you can do it. There's lots of there's lots of ways of doing it. So you can do it in bits and pieces. And pieces. I mean, people do it over a matter of years and stuff like yeah,

Wendy Jones: 20:34

that's a good tip, actually. So thank you for that. Now, I've know you've written some other books, tell us about your other books.

Judith Galblum Pex: 20:40

Well, the next book, I was going to write this book about the shelter about our hostel. Yeah. And then after the this was also this is also has to do with a travel memoir, after we came home, I started almost immediately writing it, which I think is really a that's another tip, I think it's important. I thought in the beginning when I came home, because I'd already written about, I don't know, 20,000 words on the book about the hospital. But then I thought I'd continue. And this would be sort of afterwards, but then I realised that I should write this while it was still fresh in my mind. And I also realised that writing is hard work. But actually, probably a travel memoir is one of the easier types of writing. Because it's got a beginning. You know, it's a journey beginning in the beginning and an end. And I mean, ours was 42 days of walking. So you've got a certain amount of material that you can put in besides backstory and stuff. Yeah, you know, so. But when I came home, I realised that I won't do the shelter book, right, this book about the trail. Yeah. And so then I started writing the book about the shelter. But then exactly at that time, we started getting Sudanese refugees coming in 2007, coming to Israel, there was a civil war and suit between Sudan and South Sudan. And so I was gonna do every chapter of that book about the shelter about different people, groups that came to us. And so I started writing about this Sudanese. And then I realised that that was a whole book in itself. Yeah. So then I wrote up, I started interviewing them, and wrote a book about the South Sudanese, refugees and Israel. That's called a peaceful, tolerant, smooth, it's a verse from Isaiah chapter 18. And it's about the South Sudanese refugees that come to Israel. And Ay, ay, ay, it has, I also tried to make it more of a universal appeal. And I talked about how our family, I told their stories, in first their first person, but I also told how our families dealt with refugees, and even again, issues between our own family and how to do and what to do and stuff. And so to make it I think it's, it has to do with and refugees is a tough is a topic that's doesn't go

Wendy Jones: 22:52

away, you know, it doesn't arise. addley not so sure, yeah. And then I

Judith Galblum Pex: 22:56

wrote the book about the shelter, which I, which I called come, stay celebrate. Because we have this hostel, a few guests Guest House hostel. We are my husband, and I believe in Jesus, but the guests are from all backgrounds, all countries, all religions, and many different interesting things have happened through the years. And recently, in September, I published a novel, which also takes place in a lot in my hometown. And that was a big, that's called to be long, a novel. And that was a big jump for me to write a novel that

Wendy Jones: 23:31

Yeah, yeah, no, that's good. Hey, you're very highly talented and versatile, which is great.

Judith Galblum Pex: 23:39

You haven't read them yet. You don't know.

Wendy Jones: 23:40

I've read some of Walk the Land and I'm quite impressed with that. So, my final question, Where Can my listeners find out more about you and your books?

Judith Galblum Pex: 23:52

Well, my first of all, to make it really easy. You might My name is going to is Judith galbanum. pecs that's on? Can you type it on your? Yes, I'll put a genuine I will put it down. Yes. So they can find I have. They can find it on amazon.com. Yeah, the names of the Books Are My name. Under the author, the title the book. I also have a website called Judith pecks. And yeah, that's probably on Amazon or website or our hostel. We also have a house we have a website called Shelter. hustle.com. So any of those, you can find my books and order them in paperback or Kindle. Yeah, thank you very much. And any questions? You can ask me on the shelter, we have a we have a email address. If you have any questions about walk walking the trail or anything else that comes up. Feel

Wendy Jones: 24:44

Thank you. I will put the links into the show notes so it will they will be available. So thank you very much, Judy. It was an absolute pleasure chatting to you.

Judith Galblum Pex: 24:54

Me too. I'm excited. I'm excited. It was very fun to share something that's on my heart.

Wendy Jones: 24:59

Yeah. I hope you enjoy the rest of this absolutely fabulous sunny day. That brings us to the end of another show. It was really good to have you on the show with me today. I'm Wendy H Jones and you can find me at Wendy H jones.com. You can also find me on Patreon where you can support me for as little as $3 a month which is less than the price of a tea or coffee. You go to patreon.com forward slash Wendy H Jones. I'm also went to H Jones on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest. Thank you for joining me today and I hope you found it both useful and interesting. Join me next week when I will have another cracking guest for you. Until then, have a good week and keep writing keep reading and keep learning