Around the Adriatic: Tony Straw

Around the Adriatic: Tony Straw For today’s blog post, we got to interview writer Tony Straw about his newest book, Around the Adriatic and what life is like for an author. Around the Adriatic is Tony Straw’s second book with Pegasus under our Vanguard Press imprint, where Tony reminisces about his travels with his wife Lee, early in their marriage.

Authors mentioned

Tony Straw

09 December, 2022

Around the Adriatic: Tony Straw

For today’s blog post, we got to interview writer Tony Straw about his newest book, Around the Adriatic, and what life is like for an author.

Around the Adriatic is Tony Straw’s second book with Pegasus under our Vanguard Press imprint, where Tony reminisces about his travels with his wife Lee, early in their marriage.

1. What are three interesting factors about yourself?

I asked my friends this, but their replies were unpublishable! So back to me, I’m afraid. I’ve had four lengthy but wildly contrasting careers: forestry; film & theatre production; social & community services; and travel & hospitality. I’m what the late Michael Jackson (the English journalist, not the American pop star) once styled as a ‘beer hunter’, tracking down beers all over the world. And I’m told I have a quirky sense of humour, supplemented with an ability to draw cartoons and a liking for quirky shirts and caps.

2. As a child, what did you want to do when you grew up?

I really didn’t have a set career in mind beyond wanting to go further in those things I was good at in my younger years: art, athletics, and rugby.

3. When did you first realise you wanted to be a writer?

I’ve always written a little bit: newsletter articles, poems (usually humorous), and work stuff ranging from persuasive political submissions to rendering legal/technical manuals into plain language. It was emailing ‘travelogues’ to friends back home that first led to them urging me to take it further. Even then, the process took a while, morphing through two ten-part radio series (which I read on air myself as a radio reader) to the two books now published.

Tony Straw, Author of Around the Adriatic.

4. Can you tell me about the book?

It’s the story of a particular trip, with reminiscences back to selected earlier trips – but only when there’s something relevant, interesting, or funny enough to justify such reminiscences. A travelogue, but focusing on human interests: mainly humour, some poignancy, along with the frustrations and setbacks that are par for the course for independent foreign travel.

5. How long did it take you to write your first book?

The whole process, from emails, through radio series, to book – about three years. The final leg, however – the book itself – about twelve months.

6. What do you think makes a good story?

Depends on what you’re writing. For my genre – travel memoir – I think it’s important to lift it above a mere retelling of what we did. I aim for an entertaining story, an interesting and informative read, and, above all, I want it to be fun.

7. What inspired you to write your book?

The inspiration came from a desire to share our adventures with friends and family back home, with [an] emphasis on entertainment and laughter.

Tony Straw’s book, Around the Adriatic

8. What did you learn when writing the book?

Many, many things. In fact, looking back, I’m staggered by how much I learned. Some of these things I’ve listed below under Question 10. Especially the point about getting a thing written down, regardless of how bad it is. You can improve on it later, but you can’t improve it if it’s not there. Also, because I’m a New Zealand author writing for a UK publisher (both English-speaking countries), I encountered language differences I hadn’t expected. Luckily, these get picked up during the editing and proofreading processes. And another final thing I learned is what I talk about in the next question…

9. What surprised you the most?

I’m a person who generally researches the places I travel to. This came about for a reason: I learned early on how disappointing it is to come home from a trip and then discover things about places we went to, that, if only we’d known it when you were there, we’d have gone to see them, do them, or whatever. So I research now, before going. This led me to believe that writing my travels would be a breeze: remember the funny bits, tell the story, and ‘hey presto’, it’s done! I was wrong. When writing, I found myself researching all over again, and learning new things I’d not discovered in my pre-trip research. The big lesson for me is that researching for a book that I hope will be read by many people, some of whom may already be quite knowledgeable about places I’m writing about, is vastly different from researching places to find things of interest to see or do when we go there.

10. What advice would you give to aspiring authors?

First, persevere. Second, get it down on paper. Don’t worry about getting it perfect; get it written – time enough later to go back over it, edit it and improve on it. And third, conjure up an image of who you’re writing it for, and write as if you’re telling it to them personally. One of the feedbacks I’ve had that most pleased me was when a friend told me that when reading my book, she could hear my voice as if I was there in the room telling it to her.

Around the Adriatic