Writing Workshops

Literature in Movement: How to Write Your Travelogue with Javier Sinay (July 2025)

$545

8 sessions

Out of stock

Once a week Thursdays, 7:00 pm EDT - 9:00 pm EDT July 3 to August 21, 2025

Online via Zoom

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In this workshop, you’ll learn how to write a travel story, improve one already in progress and think about the concepts of story, travel, movement, home, culture, encounter, and literature. The challenge of a writer who travels is to find the story and determine how to use the material time of the trip. The goal of this workshop is to provide tools to frame a story in a journey, narrate it, know what it is about, where it begins, where it ends, how it progresses, who the protagonist is, and how to portray the place.

To learn some techniques, we will read diverse authors: Bruce Chatwin, Jacek Hugo-Bader, Laura Lazzarino, Pico Iyer, Martín Caparrós, Juliana González-Rivera, Jordan Salama, Matsuo Bashō, and more. I will also explain how I wrote my book Camino al Este (Way East), a story of a 9,320-mile journey, and we will remember our trips (a visit to your family can be a trip). The travel story is a subjective genre, and the travel notebook can be an experiment in narrative potentiality.

But first, we will learn to tell human stories. Traveling is a way of knowing and removing some veils of ignorance or prejudice. That is why on a trip, while we can ask ourselves about the world and others, we can also ask ourselves better about ourselves and our home. As Pico Iyer wrote, “We initially travel to get lost; and we travel, then, to find ourselves.”

Course Outline:

Session I: What is a travelogue? What counts as a journey—and what does not?
- Readings
  - “Why We Travel” by Pico Iyer
  - “The Footprints of Bashō, Hearn, and Borges on the Roads of Japan” by Javier Sinay
Session II: How to recognize a good story in the chaos of reality—and make the most of it? (And, what’s a story?) Calibrating your point of view as a travel writer.
- Readings
  - Under the Sun: The Letters of Bruce Chatwin (excerpt)
  - In Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin (excerpt)
Session III: The big challenge: How to use the material time of the trip? Testing your narrative in a travel journal.
- Readings
  - The Tao of Travel by Paul Theroux (excerpt)
  - Instagram @losviajesdenena by Laura Lazzarino
  - Instagram @acrobatadelcamino by Juan P. Villarino
Session IV: Writing travel scenes: experiences, details, and moments.
- Readings
  - White Fever by Jacek Hugo-Bader
  - “Rio de Janeiro” by Jan Morris
Session V: Travelogue and travel writing: Stories in first person, the narrative work of finding something new and understanding it, and how to find the right tone for your travelogue?
- Readings
  - “The Footprints of Bashō, Hearn, and Borges on the Roads of Japan” by Javier Sinay
  - Silence in the Age of Noise by Erling Kagge (excerpt)
Session VI: Abroad vs Home. Why travel writing can also be something like: ‘Adventures One Block Away From Home.’
- Readings
  - “Why We Travel” by Pico Iyer
  - “Hawaii: Islands Upon Islands” by Paul Theroux
Session VII: Travelogue as an excuse to write about many other things and topics. Landscape and mindscape.
- Reading
  - Atlas by Jorge Luis Borges
Session VIII: The material journey and the spiritual journey. Revision and editing of a story about a trip.
- Reading
  - Travel Writings by Matsuo Basho (excerpt)

Level: Intermediate

This course will be held online via Zoom.

Led by

Javier Sinay

Javier Sinay

Javier Sinay is an author and a journalist. His books include Camino al Este, Cuba Stone (in collaboration), Los crimenes de Moisés Ville (published by Restless Books as The Murders of Moises Ville in 2022), and Sangre joven, which won the Premio Rodolfo Walsh at Semana Negra in Gijón, Spain. In 2015 he won the award of Fundación Gabo for his story “Fast. Furious. Dead” published in Rolling Stone. He lives in Buenos Aires.

About this series

Writing Workshops

We strive to make our classes the most inviting and rewarding available, offering an intimate environment to study with award-winning, world-class writers. Each class is specially designed by the instructor, so whether you’re a fledgling writer or an MFA graduate polishing your novel, you’ll find a perfect fit here.

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