Traveling as a writer, and awkward book-tour experiences, with Anthony Doerr (from 2012)

Episode 262 November 04, 2025 00:41:43
Traveling as a writer, and awkward book-tour experiences, with Anthony Doerr (from 2012)
Deviate
Traveling as a writer, and awkward book-tour experiences, with Anthony Doerr (from 2012)

Nov 04 2025 | 00:41:43

/

Hosted By

Rolf Potts

Show Notes

“I’m interested in writing because I don’t want to sleepwalk through life. I feel like we have an appallingly brief time on earth, and we’re here to see and understand and do as much good as we can before we’re gone.” –Anthony Doerr

In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Anthony talk about how the pace of travel changes the experience of travel, and what it’s like to travel as a writer (2:45); how to manage the local and the global, the specific and the universal, the concrete and the speculative, in one’s writing (12:30); how the idea of “home” influences one’s craft as a writer who travels (23:00); common mistakes writers make when writing about places and cultures they don’t know well, and humiliating travel (and book-tour) experiences (31:00).

Anthony Doerr is a novelist and essayist, and short story writer. His 2014 novel All the Light We Cannot See won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and was made into a Netflix miniseries in 2023.

Books and authors mentioned:

Other links:

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber.

Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at [email protected].

Other Episodes

Episode 218

May 02, 2023 01:04:37
Episode Cover

The Mystical High Church of Luck: Decoding Las Vegas (with Ari Shaffir)

“Things don’t happen in Las Vegas. Things are happened in Las Vegas. All actions in the town are so meticulously predicted and orchestrated that...

Listen

Episode 135

August 25, 2020 01:04:32
Episode Cover

Eric Weiner’s journey into the ways philosophy compels us to live better

“The more we try to seize happiness, the more it slips from our grasp. Happiness is a by-product, never an objective. It’s an unexpected...

Listen

Episode 206

November 24, 2022 00:50:20
Episode Cover

Deviate Live in NYC: The Vagabond’s Way (onstage at KGB Bar with Ari Shaffir)

“There’s no getting lost when you travel, because you’re already there. You’re already where you’re supposed to be, which is somewhere in this new...

Listen