PRESS RELEASE

November 10, 2008

Travelwritingclass.com Scholarship
Learn Where Inspiration Lives: Rome, Italy
Half-price tuition offered for the Fall 2009 workshop
Instructors Amanda Castleman and Marcus Donner

"Pay it forward," Susan Tifft explained: Teaching others is our 'thank you' note to those who helped us.

I met this extraordinary journalist and educator in Rome seven years ago. We sipped bellinis, scootered around the city and stuffed hundreds of envelopes to promote an Aristophanes' play. She convinced me not to start an artists' colony in a Scottish castle (daft, daft idea, in retrospect). During my divorce, she volunteered her home – and her little black book – to kickstart a new life. I owe the lady a lot.

Now she's battling uterine cancer.

And, calling on her wisdom yet again, I'm paying my gratitude forward...

– Amanda Castleman
Travelwritingclass.com Instructor

Write your way to Rome
Travel Writing Class.com announces its 2009 essay competition. The winner receives deeply discounted tuition for our Fall 2009 travel writing and photography workshop in Italy's capital.

Please submit entries for the Susan Tifft Scholarship by July 15, 2009, to scholarship@travelwritingclass.com. Email a 500-word essay, explaining why you need, want or desperately deserve this fee break.

Include your full name, email and postal addresses, and phone numbers. We only accept supplementary links: portfolio websites or up to five URLs of relevant text or photos. Any extraneous material may result in disqualification. Travel Writing Class.com will announce the results on August 1, 2009.

The winner will receive a tuition waiver, paying just $750, rather than the last-minute rate of $1,750. He or she is still responsible for airfare, transport, accommodations and incidentals, including meals outside the opening reception and closing dinner.

Eager students should enroll ASAP: our small courses fill quickly. We can not guarantee space to any contestants, except the winner.

Eligibility: employees, and relations of Travel Writing Class.com are not eligible for this competition.

Scholarship makes travel writing
"not just an elite pastime, but a true trade"
The 2008 Susan Tifft Scholarship went to Monika Jones, a Washingtonian who moved to Budapest, after completing a masters at the Central European University. “I wanted to write, live abroad, and be out-of-context,” she explains. Now based in Istanbul, she works for a variety of English-language publications and blogs.

"I'm continually grateful to Amanda and Marcus for offering a scholarship to their course," Jones says. "This act is a public commitment to assisting aspiring travel writers – who are likely like me and barely scraping together a living. In return they ensure their classroom is diverse, that the era of apprenticeship isn't over, and that travel writing and travel writing courses are not just an elite pastime, but a true trade that can be learned. They are ensuring that the travel writing industry is thick with writers who care about writing, and this is a beautiful thing for individuals and for the industry."

Read Monika Jones' full report on Rome here.

About Susan Tifft
Our scholarship's honoree is a professor of journalism and public policy studies at Duke University. Along with Alex Jones, she co-authored the best-selling and award-winning book The Trust: The Private and Powerful Family Behind The New York Times. Her next project is an exploration about the longevity revolution and women's unique place in it for Penguin Press.

In past incarnations, Susan Tifft was a speechwriter for the Carter-Mondale campaign, director of public affairs for the Urban Institute, and a national writer and associate editor for TIME Magazine. Though a giant in her field, she always finds time for kind advice or a ramble through Rome's alleys. In a word, she rocks.

"One of the reasons that
the course was so attractive
is the intellectual vigor and
integrity that both Amanda
and Marcus possess.

"They do not take travel
writing lightly, and offered
insightful, intelligent and
curious analysis of the
industry as well as
optimism and wit."

– Monika Jones
Recipient of the 2008
Susan Tifft Scholarship

About Travel Writing Class.com
Renowned instructors Amanda Castleman and Marcus Donner combine to offer a travel writing and photography workshop in Rome, Italy, Fall 2009 and Spring 2010. Further information is available on www.travelwritingclass.com.

Travelwritingclass.com tuition: $1,500, early bird rate.

Class sizes are under 12 people. Our small courses fill quickly. Register today.