The Places We've Been

Book excerpt: Today, young people are traveling to countries such as South Sudan to work in water treatment, and Vietnam to shoot documentaries about healing after war. They are joining in to perform air guitar at festivals in Finland, and listening intently from within the audience at community film screenings in Rwanda. The challenge of today is not just "where do I fit in one small place," but identity and interaction throughout the world. The Places We've Been: Field Reports from Travelers Under 35 offers a peer-written collection of 48 vivid and transportive, personal and original nonfiction pieces that portray contemporary snapshots across the globe. Contributors include: Theopi Skarlatos, journalist with the BBC Daniel Ketchum, editor at Marvel Comics Derek Helwig, twelve-season producer with The Amazing Race Vanessa Mdee, VJ at MTV Base and HIV/AIDS activist Kaitlin Solimine, co-founder of HIPPO Reads Andrew Bisharat, editor-at-large for Rock and Ice magazine Lisa Dazols, co-filmmaker and blogger of Out & Around Yuki Aizawa, 2007-2008 facilitator at StoryCorps Justin "Nordic Thunder" Howard, 2012 Air Guitar World Champion and many more writers and adventurers, whose publication histories include: The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Vogue India, San Francisco Chronicle, CondE Nast Traveler, USA Today, Chicago Tribune, Lonely Planet, Velvet Park, Crab Orchard Review, Arts & Letters, Abu Dhabi Film Festival Magazine, and others and whose backgrounds include awards from the: National Endowment for the Arts, Bread Loaf Writers Conference, U.S. Department of State Fulbright Creative Arts Fellows, Hedgebrook Writing Residency, Illinois Arts Council, and more within the book's wide roster, you'll hear from such a range of storytellers, the likes of: a sailor and glaciologist from Scotland, Brooklyn musician, Tanzanian television host, Dubai-based journalist, and a Montreal aerospace medicine enthusiast, plus rural school teachers, a fearless rock climber, five-country midwife, and so many more -- About the editor: Asha Veal Brisebois is the founder of The Places We've Been books. She was the editor for Apsaalooke: Art and Tradition, a catalogue and oral history project which resides in private and public collections including the Smithsonian Institution Libraries.