Which came first, the chicken or the egg? (Actually, that’s finally been resolved, but that’s another story.)
Which came first: the idea for the challenge, or the idea for the book?
Kurt Hoelting is the author of The Circumference of Home: One Man’s Yearlong Quest for a Radically Local Life. What would it be like to stay within 100 kilometers of Whidbey and yet never get behind the wheel of a car? What would that book look like?
The need to tackle the challenge was greater than the need to write the book. Each author works from a unique inspiration. In this podcast, Kurt was nice enough to discuss both the process of enjoying and basically living within this disc of the world, as well as the process of writing and publishing his first work. The two were intertwined.
Read the book for the details, of course, but he describes the fascinating positioning that put his house at the center of a circle that touches many of the area’s significant mountain peaks, and encompasses home for several million people. With walking, bicycling, mass transit and a bit of help from his friends he demonstrated the ease and effort required to live in modern society without a car.
Listen to Kurt for his insights about the challenge but also about how his history and community helped him complete a book that is unique and hyper-local. Writing a book, particularly a first book, doesn’t have to be done alone. Life experiences help. So does the expertise within a person’s social network, and professional literary help too, of course.
Listen in, but also keep in mind that Kurt has other skills and stories that may be best explored by contacting him, directly.
Writing on Whidbey Island (WOWI) episode 28 – Kurt Hoelting, adventurer, philosopher, author
Links
- Kurt’s Amazon page – The Circumference of Home – www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003HO5UWO/
- Thoughtful Adventure Travel – Inside Passages – www.insidepassages.com/