Matador Featured Articles - Innovators

Circling Home: An Interview with John Lane

novoarte — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 11:45:36 -0600

In this interview with writer, professor, community builder, kayaker, and self-professed “post-hippie Deep South anarchist,” John Lane shows Matador writer Julie Schwietert around the textile mill being converted into an environmental studies center, and talks about the relationships between people and place, between traveling and settling, and how to form community. Click on the audio links to hear clips from their walk along Lawson’s Fork Creek, and read on for a conversation about Lane’s book and writing about place.

The Everest Peace Project

jshugs — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 13:38:53 -0600

In this interview, filmmaker and Everest Peace Project creator Lance Trumbull discusses reaching the summit of Everest with a team of Palestinian and Israeli climbers, the challenges of making a documentary, and what it takes "to help sew the seeds of peace and reconciliation."

Ted Conover, Interviewed by Tim Patterson

Tim Patterson — Thu, 8 Nov 2007 22:17:43 -0600

"A road to me has often meant a promise--of adventure, of something new. More than anything else, I look at roads the way an explorer might, as a means of getting to the unknown, a route toward experience and knowledge," says award-winning author and intrepid traveler Ted Conover in an interview with Matador writer Tim Patterson.

From Berlin to the Bayou: an interview of Katharine Burgess

Tim Patterson — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 10:26:39 -0500

"From Dresden to Sarajevo and from Hiroshima to Hanoi, Kat traveled through bustling cities that had once been devastated by the brutal machinery of modern war," writes Tim Patterson in this in depth interview of Matador traveler Katharine Burgess.

Six in the World: One Family’s Adventure across Six Continents

Carly — Sun, 2 Sep 2007 11:07:23 -0500

Tom and Anne Andrus embark on the ultimate family vacation with their four kids, a year-long, six-continent journey of more than 30 countries, which ends not only with a greater appreciation and understanding of different cultures, but of each other.

No Average Dope: an Interview with Outside Magazine's Eric Hansen

David Miller — Sat, 9 Jun 2007 23:23:53 -0500

Outside's Eric Hansen discusses rowing boats in Italy, visiting the Human Pain Research Lab, how to make a living writing good travel stories, and the most beautiful place he's ever been.

Hands of the Child: the Diola Drummers of Casamance

Mei-Ling McNamara — Wed, 23 May 2007 20:11:35 -0500

An honorable mention in the 2007 Traverse contest, "Hands of the Child" captures a young woman's experience traveling through the Casamance region of Senegal where, with the help of a local non-profit cultural exchange organization, she makes a special connection with the Casamance drummers.

The Face of War in a Child: Mark Brecke's photography and the crisis in Darfur

Eve Simonsen — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 23:53:25 -0500

"These people have lost everything – some even watching as their fathers, brothers and uncles were murdered right in front of them, but somehow their humanity, culture and spirituality stay intact,” says photojournalist Mark Brecke in this profile of his work with the people of Darfur.

Nopal: Bearing fruit in the harshest climates

David Miller — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 09:39:39 -0500

An interview covering b-boy turned artist and entrepreneur, Nopal's Daniel Sanchez.

A Little Less Conversation

Elseman — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 21:25:37 -0500

"A Little Less Conversation," a look at one of America's strangest tourist attractions, is an excerpt from Graham Reid's award-winning travel book Postcards From Elsewhere (Random House).

From apathy to action: Barack Obama's grassroots movement to mobilize and inspire the American public

risamay — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 00:42:15 -0500

Marisa Allegra Williams reports from a St. Patrick's Day rally in Oakland for presidential candidate Barack Obama, where she finds "a deluge of support and a wild success, to say the least."

M1's call for a revolution: it’s bigger than hip-hop

David Miller — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 13:28:10 -0600

“Don’t leave this room saying ‘this rapper named M1 just hollered at me for a little while,’” said M1 to the crowd of students, activists, and local hip-hop heads packed into the auditorium. “You gonna miss the whole point if you sit here and look at me and consider me only a rapper. I’m...

Travels with Papa: Following Footsteps Well Worn

Evan Thoreau — Thu, 28 Dec 2006 00:00:00 -0600

It’s cold at first light. I wake to the sun and stretch my aching body. I spent the previous night in a squat, damp outcropping against the seawall in the little fishing village of Vernazza, Italy. We arrived late last night only to find no room at the inn, and so stuck it out on the sand and salt...

The Dream of Chacalata: Bouldering with Superheroes in Ecuador

Martin — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 00:00:00 -0600

Real names aren’t important here, but nicknames are. This is, after all, a story about a landscape out of a dream, a sport that doesn’t seem real and a ragtag group of unbelievable characters. So aliases are more appropriate. After all, if you found out that Steve Rogers put out a fire at...

Feeling Gravity's Pull: Chapters 1 & 2

David Miller — Mon, 6 Nov 2006 04:03:12 -0600

1. 1993 – The coin toss

Six months after graduating from high school, Tal Fletcher sat at the bar in the Beer Garden in Squaw Valley, California, drinking draughts of Milwaukee’s Best. The bar was below street level, windowless, and dimly lit. The in-house band, The Beer Gardeners, cranked...

Feeling Gravity's Pull: Chapters 3 & 4

David Miller — Mon, 6 Nov 2006 03:54:14 -0600

3. Dec. 15, 1997 – Fly Fishing for Great Whites

Tal bounced around in the back of a van with twelve other guys all wearing black gear, camouflage, and face paint. “I looked around at the crew,” he remembered. “Jimbo was there, M.C., Miles D., Gambler, Dano, Senior, and Quinner, among...

A passion for people: Owen Beaton and The Tandroy Conservation Trust

Mei-Ling McNamara — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 02:00:00 -0500

The south of Madagascar is an arid, isolated place, where small wooden huts dot a vast, desert landscape of prickly-pear cactus and solitary baobabs. The southern tip of the world’s fourth largest island lies just below the Tropic of Capricorn, where limestone plateaus and ochre earth stretch across...

Impossible is nothing: Start your own international NGO

Catherine Wargo — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 19:02:27 -0500

Where do you picture yourself at age 28? Maybe owning a home and holding a job you like, possibly a Master’s Degree. How about getting your PhD and becoming the founder of two internationally-based nonprofit organizations? Meet Dr. Daniel Weiss.

Daniel is an unassuming, outspoken guy from the...

Franco Mazzucco: A silversmith with a heart of gold

risamay — Sun, 13 Aug 2006 18:57:03 -0500

As it turns out, the third time was a charm. My first two week-long visits to Venice had been so quintessentially dreamy and delightful that I planned a third escape to La Serenissima and made arrangements to languish in this lavish waterlogged paradise of decaying decadence for a full month. When...