Introduction

How do you define the concept of home? Is it a physical location where you live with significant others, roommates, children, or pets? Is it a place you return to on holiday breaks, where your nuclear family resides? Maybe you have a faraway home state or hometown that you visit while you spend your daily life elsewhere. I began this summer with every intention of focusing on particular projects, but my plans were soon thrown into tumult. My landlord of three years let us know that he would like to switch to a month-to-month contract with the intention of selling the property. Suddenly, the security of having a home, a constant which I depend on to keep me grounded and provide me with a sense of peace between adventures, became an uncertain concept that could be taken away. Just thinking about it gave me that elevator lurch sensation.

My significant others and I discussed...

A year ago I reviewed the illustrated travel journal of Lucy Knisley, French Milk, set in France. While an enjoyable enough read, it lacked maturity and nuance, and didn’t really qualify as the kind of place-based writing I thought other travel writers would benefit from. Carnet de Voyage, however, also an illustrated travelogue, more than proves the validity of the genre. Craig Thompson tells an overarching story, plays with different layouts, wanders through stories-within-stories, tells two stories at once with complex drawings, and more. He also explores existential anxieties, personal beliefs, and human needs, while placing himself as a person in the world who is aware of his citizenship in larger communities.

One of the very first things Thompson does is to address the concept of truth. “The stories, characters, and incidents in this publication are based on the personal...

I took a look through various blog options. I’ve used wordpress in the past and liked it, but I wanted to see what else was out there.

I read that Penzu had a travel blog setting, but it’s so geared toward private diary-style writing that you don’t even have a blog web address. You have to choose to generate a link for any post you want to share. Definitely not geared toward building a platform.

Medium is a blog site geared toward story telling and sharing, while Svbtle is the sleek, clean, minimalist option. Surfing the net, I saw they were compared to an “us” vs. “I” approach.

Medium is a bit overwhelming imho, and reminded me a lot of Facebook or Ello. But I already have a place where I waste all my time, and I’m afraid Medium would be, for me, another sinkhole. I might get better information spending time on Medium instead of Facebook, but I wouldn’t be in the know about my...