In the 80s and 90s, I travelled across Asia, the Americas, and points in between.
At the start, Beijing had one “official” budget hotel, Myanmar denied visas to journalists, the USSR existed, and the best currency was Johnny Walker Red.
So, I wrote a series of stories of various lengths and introduced them to a writing club in North London, known as much for its consumption of wine as of words. The travelling then inspired more travelling, more writing, and some photos.
This output, focused on Asia, has now been loosely strung together into one book, and can be read either as individual stories or as a single narrative. It has gone through a full round of editing and is being prepared for submission to agents. Contact me below for publication status and further options.
Mel Christie William M Christie
March 25, 2025
Cover photo of cormorant fishing (Ukai) by Rod Waddington via Flickr (https://www.flickr.com/photos/rod_waddington/44351630122) under the Creative Commons license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/) and cropped to fit. Photo by Fedor09 from PxHere
All other photos, unless otherwise stated, were taken by me.
Copyright © 2022. All rights reserved.
All content was inspired by real events and people, in that all were real, but some were more real than others. Names and characteristics have been changed to preserve privacy, experiences have been compressed, some have been rearranged, and some have been somewhat tweaked. Any further resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Although every effort to maintain accuracy of circumstances and information, the author does not assume and hereby disclaims any liability to any party for any loss or damage caused by errors, omissions, or fuzzy memory. After all, these travels took place thirty or more years ago and are the product of a person who for the most part did not speak the local language.
I’ve had the privilege of reading some of these stories in their entirity – though prior to final edits. This guy is a lively storyteller; the stories are a lot of fun; and while it’s fiction, the settings are painted so realistically and vividly that you’re going to learn some interesting true background about the places these stories are set in. As in, some interesting accidents, incidents and angles that Rick Steves wouldn’t be including in his coverage!
Thanks for your kind words Dave. The stories are less fiction than you would think 😉