Last year I promoted the Writers Abroad competition Foreign Flavours, and now it’s time for the 2012 competition this time called Foreign Encounters.

Read on for more information:

Writers Abroad will be publishing their third Anthology entitled ‘Foreign Encounters.’ We are seeking submissions of short stories, non-fiction pieces and poetry on the general theme of relationships around the world. The anthology will be print published and later available as an e-book. All nationalities are welcome but contributors must be expat or have lived as an expat at sometime. All profits will go to registered charity, Books Abroad. Word limits: 1700 for fiction, 1000 for non-fiction and 30 lines of poetry. Please visit www.writersabroad.com for more information on how to submit. Closing date 31st July

What virtual strangers do at FIGT

I have just attended the Families in Global Transition conference in Washington DC. I love conferences. Not just any conference, mind. I love those that make me feel completely at home, even when I do not know anyone else who attends.  FIGT is a place where complete strangers meet ‘best friends’.  It was my ninth FIGT, but since I first attended Women on the Move in Paris in 1998, I calculate that I have now been to more than twenty ‘expat’ conferences.  Now attending these events does not come cheap, so what is it that keeps me going back? I think Eva László-Herbert explained this in her stunning closing keynote speech.

Eva was born behind the Iron Curtain in Transylvania to Hungarian and German parents. Before she left what was by then Romania, in 1990, almost as soon as passports became available, she spoke Romanian, Hungarian, German, English and French. Since then she has lived in Western Europe and now speaks Dutch as well. She is someone who thinks, dreams and speaks in five languages and works as a translator and interpreter. However, she has definitely lived, forever, between worlds. Answering the seemingly simple question: “Where are you from?” causes her to crumple or blossom, depending on how much the questioner really wants to know the answer.

At FIGT, Eva, a first time attendee, found she belonged. There among people of many cultures, many mixed cultures, many tongues, values and faiths, she found people who truly ‘got’ her.

The final words of her speech were these:

“Home is where you do not have to explain yourself.”

Thank you Eva for reminding me and reminding everyone in the auditorium of a fundamental truth. You see, this is why I attend FIGT and why I attend the WIN conference too, and why I return to international conferences time and again. I don’t simply ‘belong’ there, neither do I have to explain who I am or what matters to me. Spending time in a place where I can just ‘be’ is both stimulating and stress free. Socialising with a group of Swiss, Australian, Korean, Singaporean, Indian, Belgian and many other nationalities every day is bliss. At places like FIGT, I swear I am a few inches taller.

So, why am I telling you this and what has it to do with writing?

You see, I believe that we can only create our best work when we feed our souls with what matters to us and we surround ourselves with people who ‘get’ us and understand what we are trying to do.

Writing can be a solitary business. It can be hard to find peers and mentors to help us on our journey, to encourage us and give us feedback. That is why I belong to a writers’ circle in every country in which I have lived. That is why I have attended residential writing courses, much like the one I shall be running myself on writing memoir in Tuscany this September, and again in May 2013. That is why I attend writing conferences and belong to organisations like the National Union of Journalists. As you all know, I specialise in writing and publishing about expatriate issues and living abroad. This is why I network with others of like mind. It feeds my soul and fills me with inspiration.

Writing and expatriate life are what matters to me above all. They are intrinsically part of who I am. Wherever there are people who share at least one of my passions, I know that not only will I belong, but I will not have to explain myself. Among these people I am ‘home’.

Want to write a book and live overseas?

Then I have good news!

My friend, Barbara Bruehwiler produces expat city and country guides and is looking for authors…

She says:

We are looking for authors to write Expat-Living.info Guides for their host city or country. The authors we are looking for have to be expats in their host city; we need someone who knows the expat “scene” in her town..

Our authors need to be or have: fluent in English; interested in expat issues; in the know of how expats live in her town and what challenges they face; a wide network; diverse interests; happy in her host city; a good sense of humour; be able to give practical advice; able to do research; and, of course, be diligent and reliable.

Authors follow a given format. They adapt it to the circumstances of their host city. Host cities must have a big expat community. Expat-Living.info Guides are published for cities and for a whole country. In South Africa, for instance, we will have a Guide to Johannesburg, one to Cape Town, and one to South Africa. The ones for one city drill down as deep as possible and give as much specific information as possible. The author who is the first in one country has the right to not only publish the Guide to her city, but also the one to the country.

Royalties are 14.70 USD per book, and the authors can earn another 44 USD per book for referrals.

Authors write a Reference Guide of about 200 pages (but can take over 4 chapters plus much more from the first Guide), plus collect interviews (questions are given) with 6 expats from different continents. They need to check and, if appropriate, update the Reference Guide every 3 months. And they answer clients’ questions: Clients can send questions via emails to the company who answers, if possible, and only sends the ones to the author that they can’t answer.

Becoming an Expat-Living.info author is ideal even for someone who has already published a book because it offers another platform to market the first book. But, because the format is given and we are able to offer support, this is also the kind of book that is easy to write for a beginner.

More information can be found on our website: www.expat-living.info . Authors please contact us on info@expat-living.info.
Good luck!

Here is something a little different for you. I read Chapter One of my new novel, Sunshine Soup. Meet Maya and Rich Winter on their last day in Stamford, England before they head off for a new life in Dubai with their family. It seems that Maya is going to really miss her job in a delicatessen.

Listen to the recording here

On Sunday, Doris Fuellgrabe interviewed me by the magic of video for the Expat Coach Association website. In this 54 minute film I share my journey starting with my experience, before discussing expat writing and publishing market opportunities, the main reasons expats get into writing, how the publishing industry has changed, where to focus your writing attention, how automation can help you be present in several platforms, how to go from blog to book, and when you know that a book is ‘done’. We finish up by talking a little bit about my first novel, called “Sunshine Soup,” also the featured item of their newsletter .

Some of you may know Linda already through her award-winning blog at Adventures in Expatland. What you may not know is that I only met Linda six month ago and in that time she has learned to write articles, blogs, books and life story. She grabbed her goals by the scruff of the neck and and went for it, blogging 5-7 times a week, getting articles placed worldwide and she is now working on a couple of books. Linda is a role model for any new writer out there who doubts they can do really do it. An American in Holland, Linda is new to expat life but she embraced every challenge and opportunity and is now on the way to cracking career.

You can listen to my interview with her and find out the secrets of her success on today’s radio show by clicking right here.

Ruth van Reken

It is always a privilege to have a world expert to stay in my home. When that guru is also a writer, you would think things could not get any better, but yesterday, things  reached a peak. Ruth van Reken, co-author of the guide Third Culture Kids Growing Up Among Worlds and author of the autobiography, Letters Never Sent, came to visit and allowed me to open my home to a mixture of my students and writing friends for a pot luck dinner.

I should have guessed that something unusual was afoot when, for the first time in pot luck history, people  brought the same food! We had three lasagnes and two couscous dishes. The evening was destined to be a meeting of minds, with soulmates sharing soulfood.

Ruth is, to my mind, the ‘go to’ person if you want to know anything about children who grow up outside their passport country. A founder of the Families in Global Transition conference, Ruth now travels the world speaking to children, parents and teachers in international schools, sharing her wisdom.  She is a special person and instinctively knows how to hold a  room spellbound while she speaks. And, as I turned my back and busied myself finding space on the table for that third lasagne I found my sitting room had been transformed into a circle of chairs and, with Ruth as key facilitator, everyone was sharing their story.

There were 12 of us in the room, each unique and with our own story. Each of us was there because of our interest in Ruth’s subject, our desire to spend time with her, and because we love to write. Eventually, after what felt like five minutes but was probably two hours, Ruth decided to change the subject from our Third Culture stories and identities, to her writing journey.

As I mentioned earlier, Ruth has written two books. The TCK book is a how to book, a guide book and explains what it is to be raised overseas. Letters Never Sent is her memoir. She is the first to admit that the books are very different.

‘Some people are thinking people,’ she explained. ‘I am a feeling person.’ She went on to explain how writing Letters was relatively easy for her and how in writing it, she ‘sorted stuff out’.

‘Writing the book saved me a fortune in therapy,’ she said with a laugh.

‘But the TCK book was much harder to do.  I had to be give advice, tools and information. It was a mind book,’ she said. ‘Letters was a soul book.’

Ruth discovered that she needed to write the TCK book in a both different and unfamiliar way and along the way she learned something very profound.

Many people believe that, if you want to write about your life, then you need to be authentic, vulnerable even and exposed, but that for a practical guide book you can leave all that personal stuff out and get on with the content. Ruth and I agree that sure, guide books solve problems and are very helpful, however, it is only when you a guide book has case studies of real life people, in other words a human element, that the messages the book tries to convey can be absorbed.

Ruth discovered that, in writing the TCK book: ‘I needed to write from the mind, but that alone was not enough. I discovered that the book would  not work without a bit of soul too.’

That evening, a group of strangers, coming from places as far afield as New Zealand, Transylvania, Scotland and Slovakia, all shared their stories. It is only by first sharing our stories, by expressing our truths, that we can prepare for adding the soul we need to our writing.

Last month I was delighted to guest post for Anastasia Ashman at the tremendous Expat Harem blog. Anastasia likes to publish gritty, important posts and between us we decided that I would write about the dilemma facing expat authors like me. I would write about the problem of writing for a genre that has no bookshelf.

You see, we have a problem. Take my bestselling book A Career in Your Suitcase. A Career in Your Suitcase: The Expat and Trailing Spouse’s Guide to a Career on the Move

It is a book for people living abroad and is about creating and growing a portable career based on your passions. But, if you wanted a book on portable careers where would you look for it? In the Careers section, maybe? In the Travel section? The trouble is there is no expat section. But maybe, it is just a question of asking the bookshop?

In January, I met with Lynn Kaplanian-Buller, who runs the American Book Center in Amsterdam. I discussed this issue and Lynn agreed to put my books on her local interest shelf. AFter all, those people looking for books about living in Amsterdam were likely to be expatriates and likely to be interested in my books.

And then yesterday, I met with Agnes Joseph, who runs the American Book Center in The Hague and had the same conversation. Agnes has agreed to pilot a Living Abroad section in her store.

The image above shows my books on the left of the shelf that also contains a book by one of my clients, Ron van der Krol, English for Nederlanders. I think we can officially call this a result!

Will join the crusade? Will you also go to your local bookshops and ask if they would consider a special shelf for expat books?

If you don’t ask, you don’t get, right?

A few years ago I had the immense pleasure to attend a novel writing workshop at a castle in Scotland. The castle belonged to Lois and Bill Breckon and the course was led by the very successful novelist, Anita Burgh. Lois and Bill now live permanently, in Italy at a Watermill in Posara, and run a range of writing and painting workshops there. All are, I hear, as wonderful as the one I attended.

Yesterday, Lois contacted me to ask me to share with you the news of a writing competition they are running that is called The Posara Prize and that has a whopping £1,000 prize! All you have to do is write a piece of fiction or non-fiction on the subject of a foreigner in Italy and you are in with a chance. I’m not actually sure of the deadline, but I do know that they want entries to be a maximum of 2,000 words.

Only last week I wrote about the importance of grabbing every opportunity for my column at The Hague Online. Here, then, is the perfect opportunity for you to produce a piece on a prescribed theme to a fixed word count.

Are you up for the challenge?