Simon Tatum will blow your mind

By Kelsey

“Hello.”

“Hello, Kelsey, this is Simon Tatum. How are you jolly ol’ chap?” (Simon is British and I don’t think he actually says jolly ol’ chap, but that’s what I hear.)

“How’s life in Hollywood?” I ask, back home in Muncie, Indiana, where it’s almost dinner time. I have spit up on my shirt and I may or may not have pee on my pants. I’m not an invalid; I have kids, which is close to the same thing when you think about it.

“Well, Kelsey, that’s why I’m calling you. I’m shooting a pilot. Would you be interested in being in it?”

This was in November and I was traveling out to LA to meet Amilcar. “Tell me more.”

“It’s a show about this former con man turned magician, Matt the Knife.”

“Sounds interesting.”

“Oh and I should probably tell you this: You will choose one of three guns, one of which is loaded, hold it to Matt’s head, and pull the trigger. The worst thing that can happen is that you blow out Matt’s brains and are scarred for life.”

[Pause]

“Kelsey..?”

“I don’t really see the upside here, Simon.”

The show’s taping didn’t work with my schedule because it would have cut my time with Amilcar short by about 24 hours, and, as it turns out Amilcar had a pretty big story to tell me. I’m not sure I would have done it anyhow. But the show must go on. Simon found someone else to participate in the magic trick.

You can see the results in the trailer below.

‘Mysterium’ Promo 2012 from Simon Tatum on Vimeo.

Simon is a fascinating bloke, who had worked with Michael Caine, Helen Mirren, Johnny Depp, Ridley Scott, and Tim Burton, and on moves like Harry Potter and The Corpse Bride by the time he was 25. How he’s turned his abilities to making nonfiction films like the Last Freak Show that will blow your mind.

Simon was recently interviewed on www.therisinghollywood.com. You should read the interview so someday when everyone has heard of Simon, you can win some cool points by being familiar with the early mind-blowing work.

Uncategorized

Autographed books & reviews

By Kelsey

Get an autographed copy of WEARING

I was riding my bike through Ball State’s campus yesterday. After working the morning at the library, I stopped in at the campus Barnes & Noble bookstore and signed their stock of Where Am I Wearing? So, if you are itching for a signed copy of the new edition of the book, there’s about 20 there.

To order a copy call (765)285-8080. Make sure you tell them that you want an autographed one.

A little help, please

Apparently Amazon doesn’t transfer reviews from one edition to the next. So instead of having 27 reviews, the new edition of WEARING has 2. Bummer. Could you help me with that?

Reviews matter. Think about when you are shopping for a book on a subject. Do you buy the book with 2 reviews or 200?

If you have read WEARING, the 1st or the 2nd edition, please consider leaving an honest review. Here is the new edition’s Amazon page.

For other ways to support my work or the work of your favorite author read this post: Show the Love! How to Support Your Favorite Authors

This Writer’s Life

You’re $100 away from making your own dream job

By Kelsey

I get asked all the time, but I have no idea how many countries I’ve been to. It’s probably somewhere around 60.

One thing is for sure; it’s way fewer than Chris Guillebeau. The dude is going to EVERY country and he’s just a few away from being done.

When I first heard about Chris’s goal – travel to every country on the planet – I rolled my eyes. What value is there in popping into a place for a day or two? In some countries it takes me that long to work up the nerve to cross the street. I’m more of author Tim Cahill’s philosophy: “A journey is best measured in friends and not miles.”

But instead of writing Chris off as a globetrotting country counter, I visited his blog. I saw what he was doing. Chris is living the life that he wants to live, chasing down his goals with focus and determination, and more, he’s helping others reach their goals too.

My goal isn’t to travel to every country in the world, or to start a fashion line, or to open a coffee shop, or to help people beat debt, but all of these things are goals of people Chris has inspired.

Chris has traveled countless miles and has countless friends to show for it. Chris has shown me that it is possible to measure a journey in miles and friends.

Today Chris’s new book The 100 Startup: Reinvent the Way You Make a Living, Do What You Love, and Create a New Future launches. Chris introduces us to a cast of characters who have done everything the subtitle promises.

Here’s how Chris describes it:

If you want to create more freedom and security for yourself through a “very small” business, the skills and the money you have are all you need. Don’t wait!

I was lucky enough to receive an Advanced Reader’s Copy of The The 100 Startup. It is full of stories of people rubbing the sleep out of their eyes one morning and taking a new direction. Now of course, it’s not that simple. So through the examples of these unique entrepreneurs and his own experiences Chris walks us through everything from pricing, marketing, and how to afford health insurance. You need to know this stuff to succeed, but before that you need inspired.

The The 100 Startup is where inspiration meets rubber-on-the road business advice.

Before you do anything you need to start. What are you waiting for?

Simplify

Creative writing major ignores profs, publishes

By Kelsey

Each year I try to work with a college student who has an interest in writing. They help me manage some of my workload, research, and proof my work. C.M. (Chris) Humphries helped me last year, and this year he has a book out — Excluded. Congrats Chris! I asked Chris to write a post addressed to college creative writing students and share what he learned on his path to publishing his first book.

All These Stories & No One to Tell Them To

While I was still an undergraduate student, I never knew what to do with my writing. I cannot even guess at how many writing courses I took, whether under my telecommunications major or my creative writing minor. No matter which style of writing I was assigned to, it seemed like I was crafting a new story every day.

It was great to have so much material piling up, and sometimes the workshops were enlightening (although in most cases, my peers hadn’t bothered reading any of the material), but there was nothing to do with it. Although I always thought my writing could be better, there was definitely prose I wanted to publish.

But where to start?

I figured the best thing to do was inquire from those who’d already published their works—professors. Interestingly enough, most of them said not to. They wanted me to attend a MFA program before I ever considered writing.

What a pipe-bomb! At first, I thought maybe I just sucked. Maybe they read my material and thought, Man, this guy is awful. Soon enough, though, I came to realize they were telling all of my peers the very same thing.

Doing What They Said Not To Do

Now I definitely had no intention on dismissing my professors’ advice, but publishing was the very thing I wanted to do.
I’d been writing novels since high school. In my room, I had about three novels I spent years on, redrafted, but never sent out. Maybe down the road I’d rework one, but even before all of the creative courses, I knew what bad literature looked like.
But I did have some stories I thought people would enjoy. Excluded wasn’t the first novel I wrote—I think it was the third—but it definitely had something to it. I pulled Excluded out of the pile and wrote about three more drafts of it. I had my dorm-mate at the time review it (he was the biggest cynic I knew), and he sampled the story. “I don’t think this will work for a class, but it’s damn creepy.”

Once I had a clean draft, I brought it to a few professors and asked them what they thought, while reminding them it was horror (genre fiction is often shunned in literary circles). All they really told me was, “Why horror? It’s well-written, but it’s genre fiction.”

At this point, I knew I had to draw my own conclusions. I was urged not to publish because a) I wrote mainstream fiction and b) I had not attended MFA workshops. That’s when I started gathering criticism from people I knew personally and trusted to rip me a new one if my stories sucked. Overall, Excluded was definitely giving people nightmares.

I was certain I wanted to publish Excluded, but I was new to publishing world. I didn’t want to jump in and query agents and New York publishers until I procured a bit of publishing insight. I started looking at the works my professors published.
Now there were definitely some professors with pretty big publishers. A lot of them, though, were with independent presses. I wondered if I could see that level of success without a MFA.

Before long, I landed a contract for Excluded. Since then, it’s been a fun ride. I’ve learned a lot more about the publishing industry than I ever thought I would. I never realized how much leg work is expected from an author, but it’s all enjoyable.
From time to time, though, I receive some curious brows and dismissing stares. Some people just won’t accept a work of fiction as valid unless your name has a MFA tagged to it. The thing is, you don’t really need to go through all the workshops to find success in writing. The rules are quite simple: read and write. Write every day. Challenge yourself. Use prompts when you have to (there’s no such thing as writer’s block).

To be honest, a MFA program may still be in my future. I like the idea of being a professor, and I loved the ones I had. To be fair, some of them were really behind the Excluded deal and gave me the go-ahead. With writing, there’s no one way to do it. I mean, if you’re writing for the first time, definitely learn the craft. If you suck, you suck—but you can get better! If you don’t write often, you should probably write and rewrite extensively and ask for feedback before you send anything out.

Most importantly, remember your aspirations when you face rejection. Rejection letters are by far the best starting point for a writer. You’ve read a lot. You’ve written a lot. But why did they say no? All you have to do is focus on what they accepted. Research a bit if you need to. Read a lot more. You’ll instinctively notice the difference between your writing and the next guy.

If you believe in your writing, travel where it takes you. A MFA next to your name will demonstrate you’re quite good at what you do, but so will a great story.

Like what you read? Read more from C.M. Humphries at his blog.

And don’t forget to check out Excluded on Kindle…

This Writer’s Life

People aren’t proprietary information

By Kelsey

I’m at it again. Calling brands, working the corporate phone chain, sending emails, filling out contact forms, and in general not getting anywhere fast.

I’m working on a new book project – WHERE AM I EATING – out in the spring of 2013. In March I was in Costa Rica working as a banana worker and soon I’ll be on a coffee farm in Colombia.

Whole Foods and EARTH University worked with me to arrange my banana farm visit and I’m so grateful. There you have two major institutions kind enough to help me. Awesome! But that’s not always the case.

The other day I received an email from a food brand that you are definitely familiar with. Most of you probably have one of their products sitting next to your computer as you read this. The email was a response to a note I had sent asking for them to point me to the farms/farmers that produce the main ingredient for their products. Their email stated that names and locations of farms are “proprietary information.”

That’s the standby excuse. It has been for decades. “If we tell you, then our competitors will know and we could lose our competitive advantage.” NIKE used this excuse, but today NIKE reveals the names and addresses of all of their factories. How have they survived? [Check out the NIKE link. They source from 48 countries, 903 factories, and their products are made by more than 1.1 million people.]

If we’re allowed to know where our shoes come from, shouldn’t we be allowed to know where our food comes from?

One of the best examples of a transparent supply chain just keeps getting better; Patagonia’s Footprint Chronicles, which I mention in the new edition of WHERE AM I WEARING?
, has just been expanded and updated. You can see all of Patagonia’s suppliers and virtually visit them.

This is the future of producer–brand–consumer relations. The veil is being lifted. I have Facebook friends that work at factories in the developing world. The arc of the future bends toward transparency. Any company that refers to their farmers or suppliers as “proprietary information” is going to fall behind.

Engaged Consumer

How To Do Colombia Like A Secret Service Agent

By Kelsey

I’m heading to Colombia soon to hangout with coffee farmers, so I’ve been searching for a guidebook. Moon, my guidebooks of choice, doesn’t have one for Colombia, and Lonely Planet’s guide was last updated in 2009, which means the info probably came from 2008 at the latest.

I really had to search Amazon before I found Colombia Handbook, 4th (Footprint – Handbooks)
, which I ultimately purchased. In the process I found a couple of guides the Secret Service agents must’ve used or written:

Men’s Guide to Colombia 2010

Bang Colombia

In the Introduction (it was in the “look inside” section on Amazon; I didn’t buy it!) the author mentions that Colombia is leaving its FARC, hostage, drug problems in the past and is now starting to see an influx of tourists. It argues that this is exactly why you need to get there soon and start banging Colombian women.

…the last thing you want is to meet a girl who is already experienced with banging and playing gringos. To get the best of Colombia women you want to be one of her first gringos so the relationship will be fresh and novel.

Can you believe this crap exists and that it has 17 review?!? Thanks self-publishing!

On behalf of all traveling Americans, if you buy one of these books, please stay home. And on behalf of all Americans my apologies for the behavior of our Secret Service agents.

If you’re shopping for a guide for an upcoming trip, here’s an old travel column I wrote:

Misguided: The search for a guidebook

By Kelsey Timmerman

“The Kauai International Hostel has a laidback atmosphere, a friendly staff, and a quaint setting.” So says my guidebook.

After a one-night stay, allow me to translate this guidebook-ese bologna. A “laid back” atmosphere means that guests are passed out in the lawn, playing pool in the common area, sipping on 40-ouncers while listening to the Grateful Dead.

The “friendly staff” consists of live-in, 30-something, social outcasts who exit out of a room choking on, and wafting, a haze straight out of a Cheech and Chong movie to greet new arrivals. They are friendly enough, but unable to make change – and by this I mean they have the money, but are unable to count.

College keggers are quainter.

This hostel is the only place in all of my travels where I have had something stolen. It wasn’t money or my camera. It was my socks! What kind of person steals a fella’s socks? What possibly could a bunch of barefoot, drunk, high, hippies want my stained, stretched, newly-washed-but-still-smelly, socks for?

It wasn’t the first time or the last that I would be misguided by a guidebook.

When shopping for a guidebook the first thing you should look at is the copyright date. Make sure that the guidebook was published within the last few years. Keep in mind, even if the book is a brand new edition most of the information is at least a year old already.

Something that I take in consideration with every item that makes its way into my luggage is weight. I have a guidebook that covers the entire continent of Europe. That’s about 40 countries worth of info from where to stay to what to eat. It’s more of a brick than a book. Sure, it provides me with some unique uses (bicep curls), but all things considered it may not be worth its weight in underwear. The book equals about 15 pairs. Which would you rather have, more than three pairs of skivvies or info on the best time of day to visit The Baked Bean Museum of Excellence: The Home of Captain Beany in Wales?

Regardless of how objective and definitive guidebooks present themselves, they are written by overworked authors with likes and dislikes that are probably much different than your own. Check out the author bios at the beginning or end of the book. Does the author have similar interests as you? Personally, if the bio mentions anything about the author’s fondness for clubbing or massages at day spas, I may want to look elsewhere since my sole dance move is the coffee-grinder and I am terribly ticklish. Guidebooks written by people who enjoy the outdoors are a better fit for me.

There are two types of guidebook authors: those with an abundance of local knowledge and those who travel to a location solely for the purpose of researching and writing the book. Let’s say that you are visiting Bosnia and you want to go for a hike. Much of the Bosnian countryside is littered with landmines from the war in the 1990’s. Which type of author do you want to trust?

Me, I’ll go with guidebook authors like Tim Clancy, author of the Bradt Travel Guide to Bosnia. I met Tim in a restaurant in Sarajevo. He came to the Balkans in 1992 to assist with the relief efforts during the war and never left. He operates Greenvisions, an eco-tourism company. He was in the process of writing his guidebook when I met him and he recommended an itinerary for my stay in Bosnia. He drew excellent maps on restaurant napkins of some first-rate local hiking trails. Tim had hiked every trail he recommended and knew for a fact they were safe. I was blown away by the scenery of the trails, not the land mines, thanks to Tim’s local knowledge.

For the most part, guidebook accuracy is not a question of life or death, but they can heavily influence decisions that will make or break your trip. I find it best to supplement guidebooks with first-hand accounts and recommendations from other travelers. On-line you can find up-to-date, destination-specific, open-forums on Lonely Planet’s Thorn Tree (http://thorntree.lonelyplanet.com) and the BootsnAll Boards Virtual Tourist (www.virtualtoruist.com) is also worth visiting to read destination guides written by its members, over 650,000 strong.

Don’t forget that in guidebook-ese sometimes “laidback” means pot parties, a bad guidebook may cause you to have your socks stolen or lead to your stepping on a landmine. But most of all, remember that often the most memorable travel experiences are not found in the pages of any guidebook. Of course, an exception to this is The Baked Bean Museum of Excellence: The Home of Captain Beany.

Travel

Kelsey’s Closet: Alta Gracia

By Kelsey

To celebrate the release of the new updated and revised edition of Where Am I Wearing? I’m celebrating apparel companies that are making a difference by conducting two weeks of giveaways. Each day I’ll highlight a company and then giveaway an item of theirs at 9PM (ish). To enter, leave a comment in that day’s blog post or on Facebook. Winner will be randomly selected. Wanna see more clothing companies changing the world? Visit Kelsey’s Closet.

Rocking my Ball State Alta Gracia shirt

From the closing chapter of the new edition of Where Am I Wearing?

The apparel industry has a lot of issues, including child labor and sweatshops, but these are all just symptoms of the real problem: poverty.

There’s a reason a single mom of three children in Bangladesh will work for $24 per month. There’s a reason a young woman in Cambodia will pay a month’s wages as a bribe to land a job. There’s a reason a worker in China will clock out and go back to work for free instead of telling his boss to shove it. They all have an extreme lack of options—because they all live in poverty.

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof agrees, and wrote in a January 14^th 2009 column: “. . . sweatshops are only a symptom of poverty, not a cause, and banning them closes off one route out of poverty.” But I’m not so sure about his assessment that working in a sweatshop is a route out of poverty. It might be for some, but working in a garment factory wasn’t a route out of poverty for Nari or Ai or Arifa or any worker I’ve ever met (most of whom are no longer garment workers five years after I met them). Their situations haven’t improved. Amilcar looked at his family’s needs, assessed his career as a garment worker, and decided to take his chances traveling north into an unknown future. A job at a “sweatshop” might be the best of a host of not-great opportunities, but it rarely does more than keep people just on the edge of extreme poverty.

Kristof claims that developing countries need more sweatshops. But I disagree. Developing countries need more jobs like those at soleRebels and Alta Gracia, jobs that allow parents to send their kids to school. The garment industry has huge—relatively untapped—potential to fight poverty.

Bethlehem projects that soleRebels (here’s link to my radio report on soleRebels) will have 300 full-time employees by 2015. Let’s say that every worker at soleRebels has six kids (based on Ethiopia’s fertility rate). This means that over 1,800 kids will be supported by jobs at the company by 2015. The workers, with the help of the company, are able to send all six kids to school. And since these kids have an education, they don’t grow up to be shoemakers. They do something that pays better, and they send their six kids to school. By the third generation, the 300 jobs at soleRebels will have impacted 64,800 people. Within six generations, the jobs will have impacted over two million.

I realize that this calculation might be a bit oversimplified, but my point is that a job, a good job, has an exponential impact.

Another brand that is changing lives is Alta Gracia, a brand manufactured in the Dominican Republic that makes T-shirts and sweatshirts for university bookstores across the country. They pay their workers a living wage, which happens to be three times the average wage at other such factories in the country. They are open to the workers unionizing, and allowing me to work alongside their employees on the factory floor. Actually, when I made my request, the brand’s parent company, Knights Apparel, wasn’t the only group that decided it would be okay. The workers liked the idea, too. I’m hoping to take them up on the job offer someday.

The fact that they are this open is simply amazing—as is the fact that I’m not the only one they’ve invited to their factory. Alta Gracia’s union regularly receives visitors at the factory and has Skype calls with American students. The Worker Rights Consortium also regularly visits the factory and checks the pay-records at least once per week.

The New York Times reported on Alta Gracia from the Dominican Republic on July 17th, 2010:

Sitting in her tiny living room here, Santa Castillo beams about the new house that she and her husband are building directly behind the wooden shack where they now live.

The new home will be four times bigger, with two bedrooms and an indoor bathroom; the couple and their three children now share a windowless bedroom and rely on an outhouse two doors away.

Ms. Castillo had long dreamed of a bigger, sturdier house, but three months ago something happened that finally made it possible: she landed a job at one of the world’s most unusual garment factories. Industry experts say it is a pioneer in the developing world because it pays a “living wage”—in this case, three times the average pay of the country’s apparel workers— and allows workers to join a union without a fight.

“We never had the opportunity to make wages like this before,” says Ms. Castillo, a soft-spoken woman who earns $500 a month. “I feel blessed.”

“It’s a noble effort, but it is an experiment,” Andrew Jassin, co-founder of Jassin Consulting, an apparel industry consultant, quoted in the same story. “There are consumers who really care and will buy this apparel at a premium price, and then there are those who say they care, but then just want value.”

You’re a consumer. Do you care?

(end of the excerpt, now this is me today)

Today, Alta Gracia is more than an experiment. Notre Dame just unveiled their official shirt, made by Alta Gracia, for the 2012-2013 football season and their book store announced they hope to carry $500,000 of Alta Gracia apparel in the near future.

Alta Gracia is succeeding, and with each T-shirt sold, they are proving that consumers do care.

Kelsey’s Closet: {R}evolution Apparel

By Kelsey

To celebrate the release of the new updated and revised edition of Where Am I Wearing? I’m celebrating apparel companies that are making a difference by conducting two weeks of giveaways. Each day I’ll highlight a company and then giveaway an item of theirs at 9PM (ish). To enter, leave a comment in that day’s blog post or on Facebook. Winner will be randomly selected. Wanna see more clothing companies changing the world? Visit Kelsey’s Closet.

Kelsey’s Closet: Ethix Merch

By Kelsey

To celebrate the release of the new updated and revised edition of Where Am I Wearing? I’m celebrating apparel companies that are making a difference by conducting two weeks of giveaways. Each day I’ll highlight a company and then giveaway an item of theirs at 9PM (ish). To enter, leave a comment in that day’s blog post or on Facebook. Winner will be randomly selected. Wanna see more clothing companies changing the world? Visit Kelsey’s Closet.

Kelsey’s Closet Giveaway: Cotton of the Carolinas

By Kelsey

To celebrate the release of the new updated and revised edition of Where Am I Wearing? I’m celebrating apparel companies that are making a difference by conducting two weeks of giveaways. Each day I’ll highlight a company and then giveaway an item of theirs at 9PM (ish). To enter, leave a comment in that day’s blog post or on Facebook. Winner will be randomly selected. Wanna see more clothing companies changing the world? Visit Kelsey’s Closet.

Enter a Comment below to win a shirt

They’re bringing cotton back

Farm, gin, spin, knit, finish, cut, sew, print, and dye. That’s what it takes to make a T-shirt. And Cotton of the Carolinas is happy to introduce you to everyone on each of these steps. Cotton of the Carolinas is the most transparent apparel company I’ve ever seen.

Want to talk to the farmer who grew the cotton for your T-shirt? Well, his name is Ronnie Burleson and Cotton of the Carolinas has his phone number and email address on their site. AMAZING! Ronnie lives outside Richfield and is a 3rd generation farmer and one of the first to bring cotton back to the area in 1991. Today he farms alongside his brother Dennis, son Andrew, and nephew Aaron.

Ronnie’s nephew Wes Morgan (New London, NC) does the ginning . Mark Leonard (Thomasville, NC) at Hill Spinning does the spinning. Mortex Apparel a family business run by Brian Morrell (Spring Hope, NC) and Started by his father in 1984 cuts, knits, and sews the shirts. Kenny Hoyle (Statesville, NC) over at MoCaro Dyeing and Finishing oversees the dyeing and finishing. And my buddy Eric Henry and Tom Sineath at TS Designs (Burlington, NC) print the shirts.

You can meet them all on the Harvest ’10 interactive map.

All of these efforts equal the most comfortable organic T-shirt I’ve ever worn. They are amazing! I should email all of the folks involved producing my shirts thank you notes. But as great as the shirts are, I get more excited about the transparency involved in their creation. Also, everyone is from North Carolina, which holds a special place in my heart, since Annie and I lived there for a few years.

The most local T-shirt in the world

A typical T-shirt might travel 17,000 miles on the global supply chain. A Carolina Cotton shirt travels from dirt to shirt in under 750 miles and employees over 700 people. It just might be the most local T-shirt in the world.

Every Fall I get an invitation from Eric Henry at TS Designs to attend their harvest celebration. One of these days I’m going to take him up on the offer. Watch the video below and tell me you don’t want to sit on a front porch with Eric and Ronnie Burleson and throw back a couple of cold ones (beer or iced tea), and talk about farming and cotton and T-shirts with maybe a little blue grass playing in the background!

North Carolina has a long history with the textile industry and it’s great to see folks keeping the tradition alive.

They have a couple of great designs available for purchase. And any group that works with environmental issues or is looking to lessen their carbon footprint can request a quote.