Authors On-The-Go: Roving Authors and the Unusual Places they Write from

For many years, I was nomadic. It’s a lifestyle that can suit a writer. It was also a training ground, to write wherever I was, under whatever conditions. No waiting for the muse to show up… she was often

The view from one of my moving offices

on a different flight. Instead, you learn to just get on with work. I regularly tapped out books and articles in airports, on planes and in dodgy little hotels and hostels. But my favourite place to write, then, and still now, was on a train. I’ve written on trains all over the world and trains remain my favourite mode of travel, and my favourite place to write.

A year ago, I travelled around Japan for three months with my younger son. It’s a country I have a long history with, so on this trip I really made sure we travelled to some really unusual destinations on local trains – I love Japan’s trains. While we travelled, I wrote Fish Out Of Water, a YA novel set in Japan. I wrote on various trains from the Shinkansen to two-carriage local services, through mountains, and winding down Japan’s coastlines. Japan’s trains

Of course, travel writers can make a living out of this, but travel writer’s aside, there are a lot of authors who, like me, have written novels on the go.

One of our favourites here at Better Reading is Jenn J McLeod. Jenn writes her novels while travelling Australia in her van Myrtle the Turtle. I loved Jenn’s books well before I realised she was nomadic. Over the next month, we’ll publish a series of interviews Jenn has done with authors who write from some unusual places – a boat, a van… even a tractor. We think you’ll enjoy reading about these Authors On-The-Go, with Jenn’s own story being the first posted.

If you know of any authors who write On The Go… let us know.

Jane Tara is Better Reading’s Lifestyle Editor, and generally writes her books from her shambolic house in Bondi now, rather than on the road.