President’s Column — July, 2009

I’m back from a month-long spaghetti pilgrimage all over Sicily and Italy where John Montgomery and I gave a presentation on California tourism at a Food and Italy Conference and explored many nooks and crannies all over Sicily, Calabria, Campagne, and Umbria, from agrotourismo to well and lesser known archaeological sites.

Thanks to Laurie McAndish King, Sandy Sims, April Orcutt, Tom Wilmer, Molly Blaisdell, Susan Alcorn, Arvis Northrop, and everyone else who organized our June event in Marin County and who kept all the BATW wheels turning smoothly. I heard that Penny Sansevieri and the meeting at Inn Marin were all terrific. I’m very sorry to have missed it. Special thanks to Molly for pulling it all together.

Sandy Sims has some exciting programs coming up throughout the rest of 2009, and is already working on 2010. Among them will be well known author and BATW member Antoinette May on moving between fiction and non-fiction with travel writing in July at a lovely Half Moon Bay location. Our August program will focus on travel photography. Dee Rogers is coordinating a panel for this event which will be on Pier 39 and will include hands on walkabouts and a number of theatrical and nautical experiences. Some further mysteries of web and internet usage and marketing will come to you in September from a panel of BATW experts, being coordinated by Erin van Rheenen, Edward Hasbrouck, and others. For our October meeting, Molly Blaisdell and Janice Nieder are hard at work preparing our second Associates meeting which will include a Marketplace, panel, and discussion exploring ways that writers, photographers, and Associates can better work together to achieve all our goals in the most mutually beneficial ways.

I hope everyone is doing well and having fine adventures whether at home in our beautiful Bay Area or falling off the map (Thanks, Pico Iyer) on the far edges of our planet.

– Diane LeBow
President, BATW

[Editor's note: Read more about Diane's "Spaghetti Pilgrimage" in the "Articles" section of the website.]