Wikipedia commons - full sunburst over the earth
No, I’m not writing an apocalyptic sci-fi story about a country cast adrift amidst the Islets of Langerhans… This post is about an interesting blog relating to expats with a creative bent.
I’ve
been an expat writer for 11 years, ever since my wife and I left England for
the Costa Blanca. The beauty of being a freelance writer is that the work can
be done almost anywhere and at any time. Naturally, there may be commitments,
deadlines occasionally – but they’re self-imposed. Nobody tells me to write. I
do it because I am driven to write.
The
popular image of expat writers is probably an author sitting on a balcony with
the sun blazing, the sky a brilliant azure, the garden a riot of colour, the
typewriter clacking away next to the tray of drinks… The truth is more prosaic:
working at a computer keyboard indoors, perhaps with an infrequent stroll in
the garden to avoid DVT; and of course alcohol and creativity don’t mix too
well, either.
Expat
writers the world over can and do gain insight into their adopted countries,
using the once-removed perspective of an outsider looking in. And their writing
can be most enlightening.
Which
brings me to a fascinating blog entitled The
Displaced Nation. Its sub-title is ‘A home for International Creatives’. In
its first four years of existence it has built up an impressive array of
features, interviews, and columns. One
of these is the location-locution column:
Browse
through the earlier interviews and you’ll be transported to far-flung places –
China, Germany, and Switzerland for example. They’re the expat writers, scribes
with wanderlust, but you can also read about artists and photographers in
another column. In fact, there’s plenty here to grab your attention for quite a
while; take a look.
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