My pal, Beth Whitman, author of Wanderlust and Lipstick: The Essential Guide for Women Traveling Solo, and her new follow-up, Wanderlust and Lipstick for Women Traveling to India, has just launched Passports with Purpose, a travel-themed raffle to support Heifer International, along with fellow travel bloggers Debbie Dubrow of DeliciousBaby, Pam Mandel of Nerd’s Eye View, Michelle Duffy of WanderMom. And... I am among the prize donors.
Buy yourself a ticket, and you could win signed copies of my two books, Getting Lost: Mishaps of an Accidental Nomad, and Globejotting: How to Write Extraordinary Travel Journals (and still have time to enjoy your trip!) But wait... there's more! Along with these two books, the winner will receive his or her choice of either a one-hour writing consultation with me in Seattle (or anywhere else I happen to be traveling), or a critique via phone or e-mail of any 1,000-word-or-less piece of writing.
Here are some of the possible topics we can talk about if you are the lucky winner:
- How to break into freelance writing, identify markets for your work, and pitch ideas to editors
- How to turn your travel journals into polished, publishable essays
- Tips to make your humor writing funnier and get more laughs
- Tips on infusing humor into other styles of writing to hold the reader's interest
- Motivational strategies to help you write more, write better, and break through writer's block
- Ways to tighten up your writing so your words have maximum impact with your readers
- A review of your travel (or other) journals to help you capture more meaningful stories and/or achieve greater personal growth
- ...Or anything else you can think of! (Feel free to drop me an e-mail if you want to run an idea by me!)
With the holidays coming up, this might also be a groovy gift for a writer you know. (And if you don't win, I will also be announcing my new critiquing and consulting service for writers soon. E-mail me if you are interested, or subscribe to my mailing list.)
And this is just one of the prizes you can win. Beth's "Passports with Purpose" raffle is teeming with other nifty prizes such as a three-night stay at the Wyland Waikiki in Hawaii, a cultural food tour of Harlem, camera gear, travel clothes and gadgetry, world music CDs, and more.
"Dave! Dave! How do I buy my tickets?"
Thank you for asking. Tickets cost 10 bucks each, and all proceeds will benefit Heifer International, an organization dedicated to ending hunger, poverty, and other forms of suffering around the world.
To enter, check out Beth's Passport with Purpose page on her blog.

Great books. My wife have several of them and is very happy for them. Highly recogmended!
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