Dear Network,

Nearly spring is possibly a misnomer, given that it’s been snowing solidly here in London for well over 24 hours. The Swede in me rejoices, while my more Latin American side is slightly nonplussed.

It’s been a good long while again, since I last “penned” a newsletter. I hope you’re all keeping well and I wish you a Better New Year in 2021. Perhaps like me, you were pleased to see the back of 2020, even if this new year is off to a rocky start for many and it’s hard to know what the future has in store.

With travel options, and many other freedoms, so curtailed over the last twelve months, as mentioned in my last newsletter, I’ve chosen to take a trip down memory lane (that’s the kind of travel I can do from my office) and I have put together a new travel book, Wayward Wanderings – a travel memoir, which I’m pleased to say is available to pre-order from my website as of today!

https://amhellbergmoberg.co.uk/product/wayward-wanderings/

Estimated publishing date is the 28^th of February and I’m also doing a special offer on my illustrated hardbacks. All three will be available to buy for £5.00 only, for a limited period when you buy a copy of the new travel book.

I must admit, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed writing non-fiction again. For a few years now, I’ve been quite convinced that I would be sticking to fiction from now on, but much as I enjoy talking to “imaginary friends and foes”, all living in my head, I find this pursuit is best mixed in with a good dose of socialising and meeting actual, real people. In 2020 such opportunities have been severely limited, so to aid my sanity, non-fiction suddenly seemed like an excellent idea again.

It’s been a great, if sometimes nostalgic adventure, to hit the road in writing and relive some of my most (and least) fun, fabulous and sometimes downright dangerous, experiences. Why a travel memoir? Well, partly because I’ve now reached the substantial age of 50 and so feel that it’s quite OK write a memoir, but also because it’s fun to write in a more personal and informal style than traditional travel journalism. That said, a number of the twenty-five chapters have been published previously, as newspaper or magazine articles. Seven chapters are freshly written and have not been published before. I have chosen to include a section with practical information, as well as a music section at the back of the book.

Finally, the book contains two colour image sections with some 40 of my images from different parts of the world.
The twenty-five chapters include twenty-three destinations – ten in Europe, seven in the Americas, four in Asia, and two in Africa.

Here’s a short introduction to the book:
Lunch with a gun in Buenos Aires, Carnival with Sophia Loren in Tenerife, a cycling adventure near the North Korean border and an impromptu English teaching day in Burma are just some of the experiences recounted in this memoir of twenty-five travel tales, accompanied by the author’s own images. With journeys spanning three decades and over twenty countries, Anna Maria Espsäter takes the reader on multiple adventures across the globe from her first solo journey as a naïve, but intrepid, teenager visiting Wales in the mid-1980s to becoming a professional travel writer twenty years later and spending twelve years travelling the world in search of good stories (good food, good wine and wicked, unusual activities).

As always, please spread the word, keep well and feel free to get in touch to say hi!

AM Hellberg Moberg/Anna Maria Espsäter