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“Bali Shadows” featured in travel e-zine, Passionfruit

I’m excited that my story “Bali Shadows” is featured this month in the fabulous travel e-zine Passionfruit.com, edited by Michele Jin.

I first traveled to Bali 20 years ago “my first-ever trip to the bush, my first-ever overseas trip with Jack, a month after he slipped an engagement ring on my left hand.”

I returned in 2011, “a different person, one who’d had a stroke at age 48, a cataclysm that left me … memory-challenged, dependent on scary-high levels of blood thinner and particularly vulnerable wherever medical care was scarce.”

“Bali Shadows” reminisces about the romance of the first visit, and explores some of what I’ve learned since, about travel–and about myself.

Hope you’ll have a look.

While you’re there, check out some of the other stories. Laurie McAndish King writes about tracking lions in Botswana – unarmed and on foot; and Colleen Kaleda tells a harrowing tale of getting lost in the night on Hawaii’s Na Pali Trail.

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New travel anthology explores Bali’s tropical paradise

I’m excited to be part of the luscious new travel anthology Wandering in Bali: A Tropical Paradise Discovered, a collection of stories from the land of frangipani, myth, and mystery. Don’t miss our two book launch events:

  • Saturday, June 9, 7 pm at Book Passage Corte Madera: 51 Tamal Vista Blvd., Corte Madera, CA 94925 (415) 927-0960
  • Monday, June 11, 6 pm at Book Passage, San Francisco Ferry Building

Both events are free and open to the public.

Two of my stories “Bali Shadows” and “Authentication Failed” join twenty other stories and poems, some mystical, some funny, some terrifying–each in a different, highly personal voice. From computer glitches to shadow puppets, temples, Balinese feasts, classical music and dance, I and my fellow writers sample and share the multiple faces of Bali.

Sitting on the lanai, I remembered our first day there: the air heavy with the fragrance of frangipani and promised rain … the thrumming of an afternoon downpour on our thatched roof … the sound of sawing cicadas and the whoop of a kingfisher diving in the gorge.”

The buzz on Wandering in Bali:
“For centuries, Bali has drawn souls from east and west to its natural beauty, mystical spirituality, and captivating arts. This collection of stories, poems, and photographs offers multiple windows from which to view this engaging place, all presented with rhythms and moods as melodic as the sound of the gamelan.”
—Larry Habegger, Executive Editor, Travelers’ Tales Books

“Like renting a frangipani-scented hut, kicking back and sharing the sensory wonderland that is Bali with a bunch of your fast friends—if your friends knew how to tell really good stories.”
—Spud Hilton, Travel Editor, SF Chronicle

On sale now from Book Passage, the Bay Area’s favorite bookstore: Buy here

Here, in pictures, are some of my favorite memories of Bali.

Picture Gallery
New travel anthology explores Bali’s tropical paradise

  • Garuda Mask from a Ramayana dance at Ubud's Water Palace

  • Dance from the Ramayana at the Water Palace in Ubud

  • Shadow puppets

  • Fanciful mask from master mask-maker Ida Bagus Anom Suryawan

  • Fruit seller at the Ubud market

  • Mischievious Monkey at Ubud's sacred monkey forest

    Mischievious Monkey at Ubud's sacred monkey forest

  • Snaky doings at Bali's Elephant Cave Temple

  • Rice fields – and cell phones, too – at the sacred temple of Gunung Kawi

  • Forest on Sayan Ridge outside Ubud

  • Beach at Canggu on Bali's western shore