I’m more than a little surprised to find myself in this box: my idea of NEWS is something that happened in 1848, and I think there are better things to advertise and take notice of than my tiny doings or scribbles.

But now that DDB Singapore has brought me into the 20th century – with every sign of coaxing me into the 21st – I’m happy to welcome anyone who’s interested to this space, where we may now and then post something that’s not easily found elsewhere, a video clip from our recent journeys or something that might be of interest to anyone who’s traveled as far as this unexpected corner.

Thank you for your time and attention, and if you’re irritated by something here, please blame the brilliant designers of these pages. Without them, I’d still be in some black hole!

If you’re interested in hearing Pico Iyer speak, here are a few dates and places to try:

November 6Conversation with Jennifer Egan, UCSB Arts & Lectures
Santa Barbara, California
November 9 Onstage conversations, Sharjah International Book Fair
Sharjah, United Arab Emirates
December 3Keynote Lecture, Bangalore Literature Festival
Bangalore, India
January 13, 2023 Presentation of The Half Known Life, Vroman’s
Pasadena, California
January 17Conversation at Kepler’s bookstore
Palo Alto, California
January 18Conversation with Don George, Book Passage
Corte Madera, California
January 19 Onstage conversation, Asian Art Museum
San Francisco, California
January 24 Virtual Zoom conversation, with 5 X 15
London, England
January 24Onstage conversation, Asia Society
New York, New York
January 30 Virtual conversation with Books & Books and others
Miami, Florida
January 31Keynote, Educational Travel Consortium
Reno, Nevada
March 14Conversation with Tracy Kidder, UCSB Arts & Lectures
Santa Barbara, California
April 27 Conversation with Isabella Rossellini, UCSB
Santa Barbara, California
May 2 Lecture, Seattle Arts and Lectures at Town Hall
Seattle, Washington
May 12-21 Jaipur Literature Festival Soneya Fushi
The Maldives
August 9 Talk on travel, Book Passage
Corte Madera, California
August 12 Conversation, Book Passage Travel Writing Conference
Corte Madera, California
NovemberConversation with Stephen Batchelor, Musashin U.
Koyasan, Japan
NovemberConversation with Stephen Batchelor, Camphor Village,
Kyoto/Nara, Japan
April 2024Isherwood-Bachardy Lecture, Huntington Museum
San Marino, California
October 2024Montgomery Fellow, Dartmouth College
Hanover, New Hampshire

Many more engagements are currently in the works.

Around Deer’s Slope”–an essay on walking for the book Where My Feet Fall, published by William Collins in Britain and excerpted in Orion, as “Never the Same River Twice,” March 16, 2022

“At a Loss”–an essay on Juzo Itami’s film The Funeral, for a new Criterion Collection DVD and Blu-Ray released on May 17, 2022, and adapted into an essay, “Last Rites and Comic Flights”, appearing in the Summer 2022 issue of The American Scholar.

“Open Borders, Fresh Perspective”—an essay on the art-island of Naoshima, for the Financial Times, June 18, 2022.

“A Broken Town”–a short piece on Yemen for Lion’s Roar, July 2022.

Essays on the four seasons in Japan for a catalogue and exhibition, “Spirit of Shizen” produced by the Luxembourg Museum of Natural History, July 2022

“Kuwait from On High”—an essay on Imagine a City, by Mark Vanhoenacker, for Air Mail, June 25, 2022.

“Epiphany”—a long essay on Ethiopia and spiritual transport for Chris Rainier’s book of photographs, Sacred, September 2022.

“A Journal of the Plague Year”—an essay on Lucy by the Sea, by Elizabeth Strout, for Air Mail, September 17, 2022

“Mysteries in Plain Sight”—an essay on the photographs of Tom Sandberg, appearing in a new book called “Tom Sandberg,” put out by Aperture Press and excerpted in The Observer, October 16, 2022.

The debut podcast for Satori magazine in Britain, with Lawrence Rice, October 28, 2022.

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