CAITLIN FITZSIMMONS

I have an article on BusinessWeek.com today about US immigration and how alcohol is a factor. As well as comment from the State Department, it involves a fantastic case study about a British man and an American woman who married last year but are still separated because the US Embassy turned down his Green Card application because of a nine-year-old drink driving conviction. Over the past five years there has been a huge jump in the number of people turned down for visas on the basis of a “physical or mental disorder”, which includes alcohol problems. For more, please read the story.

BusinessWeek is my first US client in journalism. (In the blogging space, I also write for EcoSalon). Talk about starting at the top! I hope to write more for BusinessWeek soon.

I’ve just spent an extraordinary few days at Book Passage Travel Writers & Photographers Conference in Corte Madera, north of San Francisco.

The faculty included brilliant writers such as Tim Cahill and photographers and also editors and agents. The access was superb. The conference was quite intimate – we had 75 students and over 30 faculty members – and since we were there for four days, there were plenty of formal and informal opportunities to meet people.

For me it was a nice blend between networking and working on craft. I took Larry Habegger and Henry Shukman’s personal essay and memoir workshop in the mornings, which I very much enjoyed. I also took inspiration from the readings and talks from published writers and photographers – and from the many book-filled shelves in the enormous and wonderful Book Passage store.

I want to get more serious about travel writing as I enjoy both the travel and the creative style of writing. I’m also very much looking for new markets now that I’m based in the US. This is particularly true since Anyway magazine, which commissioned a lot of my foreign reportage, is on hiatus.