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Celeste Brash
Celeste Brash
Celeste Brash
Celeste Brash

Expat Women: Expat Travelers

Travel Writing

Celeste Brash


Celeste is a traveler and a writer. Her travel articles have appeared in Islands Magazine, Voyageur Magazine and she is a regular contributor to the widely syndicated newspaper column Travels with Lonely Planet. She has also co-authored over a dozen Lonely Planet guidebooks, including Tahiti & French Polynesia, South America on a Shoestring, Canada, Thailand's Islands & Beaches, Indonesia (2010), Malaysia (2010) and Travel with Children (2009) as well as The Lonely Planet Guide to the Middle of Nowhere and a slew of web content for Lonely Planet. Her real passion is travel narrative and her stories have appeared in the Travelers' Tales anthologies The World as a Kitchen and 30 Days in the South Pacific; her story "Mama Rose's Coconut Bread" won the 2007 Travelers' Tales Silver Solas award for best story about food and travel. She lives in French Polynesia.


Expat Women's Interview with Celeste

Expat Women: Celeste, you are the envy of many women – you live in Tahiti and you have successfully sculpted a career as a travel writer. What's your secret?

Celeste: When I first moved to French Polynesia we lived in the remote Tuamotu Archipelago but we came to Tahiti once my daughter needed to start school. I do not really know how I got so lucky! If I had a secret I guess it would be going for what I want to do rather than what I think I should do. I take risks. I've gotten less so with age, but idealism really led me here. Even right now, I have set aside good paying work to write my own book. We are eating lots of beans and pasta but I think in the long run it'll be worth it.


Expat Women: When did you start writing for a living and how did you get your work noticed by big names like Lonely Planet?
 
Celeste: I have always loved writing but I did not go professional till I moved to Tahiti about nine years ago. I just started writing short articles for ezines and small magazines then used those clips to work my way up. My big break came when I attended the Book Passage Travel Writers' Conference in California and Lonely Planet happened to be there. They put together a surprise contest where we had to write a guidebook chapter and I won. Unfortunately 911 happened right after and the US Lonely Planet office shut for a short time and I ended up working with my husband to help the pearl farm survive the economic crash instead of writing guidebooks. A few years later I was travelling in Mexico and met a senior editor at Lonely Planet who remembered me from the contest. She set up an opportunity for me to submit another writing sample to the company and with that I got the job!
Expat Women: What five things do successful travel writers know, that aspiring travel writers need to know?
 
Celeste:
1.
Write well.
2.
Write for your audience.
3.
Write about something you love and can be passionate about (whether it's your home or a place you fell in love with on holiday).
4.
Try to find new angles on popular topics; and by all means...
5.
Do not be afraid to send your work to big name magazines and pitch often.
Expat Women: You have travelled and worked extensively abroad. What was it that took you to French Polynesia and what is it that keeps you there?
 
Celeste: I moved to French Polynesia right when I had been offered a great job starting up a language program for Japanese businessmen at an already well-established English school in Singapore - but I did not like living in Singapore. The love of my life was in the Tuamotus and I had a b urge to try my hand at living off the land and physical work instead of the intellectual stuff I had always done. Now French Polynesia is my home. My kids have grown up here and now that they are in middle school they wouldn't want to move; my husband is a pearl farmer and he wouldn't want to live anywhere else. As for me, I could live anywhere with my job, but I think this is the perfect place to raise kids and I have gotten far too used to the warm water and wholesome lifestyle.
Expat Women: Finally, when should we book tickets to see you next belt out some vocal solos in local Tahitian performances of French Broadway-style musicals?
 
Celeste: Ha ha! I had to stop singing with that group because I was on the road too much. That is definitely one of the downsides of being a Lonely Planet author, not being able to commit to anything at home. Recently though I have started taking Tahitian dance classes and, even though I am really terrible at it now, I might end up dancing in a show in December.
Expat Women: Celeste, thank you so much for sharing some snippets of your life with us. Enjoy your Tahitian sunsets!
 
 
Links
 
Celeste Brash
http://www.celestebrash.com

Celeste Brash's Blog: Coconut Radio
http://coconutradio.blogspot.com/
 
 
September 2009
 
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