Writing: The year that was, the year that will be

(picking coffee in Colombia)

I lived to write in 2012.

WHERE AM I EATING? AN ADVENTURE THROUGH THE GLOBAL FOOD ECONOMY

I came across some amazing stories in 2012, but to do that I had to be away too much from my amazing family. Don’t tell my editor, but I wasn’t sure if it was possible to travel to eight countries (Costa Rica, Honduras, Colombia, Peru, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Burkina Faso, China) for research for three months and write an 85,000 word book in a single year. It is. Barely.

EATING comes out April 22nd. If you want to know where I’ve been this year and where your food actually comes from, reading EATING will do both. WHERE AM I EATING was an easy book to write, but a tough one to live.

Living is the most important part of the writing process.

And by living I mean meeting interesting people, doing interesting things, and not dying in the process.

There were too many moments in living EATING that I thought I was going to die. Annie is reading about my adventures through the global food economy now. The other day she put the book down and said, “I thought you told me you were going to be safe.” However, my risks pale in comparison to the daily risks of many of the people who work to feed us.

You can preorder WHERE AM I EATING on AMAZON / BN.com / Indiebound.org

WHERE AM I WEARING?

The paperback edition of WEARING came out in April of 2012 and, in terms of sales, completely owned the first edition in a matter of months. As I’ve mentioned before, I had a lot of unfinished business that I was thrilled to have the chance to finish in the 2nd edition.

WEARING basically has been a giant F-U to the idea of the “publishing window” – books only have a finite window in which to sell upon their initial release. It took a lot of effort on my part to do everything I could to keep sharing the stories of the people I met. I also had a lot of great support from my publisher John Wiley & Sons.

I hope I get to keep sharing these stories. They have impacted the way I live my life so much.

If you haven’t read WEARING yet, you can get it at all of these places.