publications

 

Primordial Love

An essay about one of the sweetest sensations in life, departing Paris during the pandemic, and how memory and love are linked.

The Smart Set

Illustrations by Camille Valasquez

Our Ravaged Lady

Notre Dame de Paris - and a life - catch fire.

Society of American Travel Writers Foundation Lowell Thomas Award - Essay Silver

Grand Prize Gold Solas Award for Travel Story of the Year, 2020

The Best Women’s Travel Writing, vol. 12

Travelers’ Tales Editor’s Choice, April 2020

Hidden Compass, Spring 2020 edition (Revised version)


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A Jagged Edge in Fez

A violent memory unspools in the labyrinthine byways of Fez, Morocco.

Deep Travel Anthology: Souvenirs from the Inner Journey, August 2019

Bronze Solas Award - Travel and Transformation, 2016

The Stance of the Toro Bravo

A bullfight in Plaza de Toros de las Ventas, Madrid offers a path to healing.

The Pilgrimage Chronicles, Sacred World Explorations, 2017

Medium online

Gold Solas Award - Travel and Healing, 2014

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The Ancient Storyteller of Morocco

Ahmed Ezzarghani, traditional Hakawati (storyteller) of Marrakech, Morocco, transcends language, time, and distance.

Panache, Paris, June 2018

Vignettes & Postcards from Morocco - Afterword

Excerpted in The Creative Process Exhibition in Fez, Morocco, 2019

Medium online

Gold Solas Award - Most Unforgettable Character, 2017

Spirals: Memoir of a Celtic Soul

Mystical experience and memory swirl together in Ireland.

The Soul of a Great Traveler, Travelers’ Tales Solas House, 2017

The Best Travel Writing, vol 9 Travelers’ Tales Solas House, 2012

Travelers’ Tales Editor’s Choice, March 2012

Silver Solas Award for Travel Story of the Year, 2012

Press 53 Open Awards Finalist, 2011

“Into Celtic Twilight”

A return to Ireland brings a spiritual experience that leads to a homecoming in California.

Travelers’ Tales Website

Awards: Gold Solas Award - Travel and Healing, 2017

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Reconnaissance: Seeking Sainte-Geneviève

Geneviève, a fifth century French heroine, becomes a guide through current difficult times.

Wings

The Best Women’s Travel Writing, vol. 11, Travelers’ Tales Solas House, 2017

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Out Into Paris

The terrorists attacks of November, 2015 evoke the past, present, and future of Paris.

Wings

Gold Solas Award - Bad Trip, 2017

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In Vincent’s Footsteps

An effort to walk in van Gogh’s shoes becomes disastrously real.

Wings

The Best Travel Writing, vol. 11, Travelers’ Tales Solas House, 2017

Gold Solas Award - Bad Trip, 2016

Cézanne’s Salon des Refusés

Paul Cézanne’s heartaches and isolation give his art astonishing clarity.

Wings

Excerpted in The Creative Process Exhibition, University of Leuven, Flanders, Belgium, The European Conference for the Humanities; American University of Paris; 800th anniversary of Salamanca University, Spain.

Medium online

Silver Solas Award - Culture and Ideas, 2016

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Bastille Day on the Palouse

A trip across the Washington state Palouse offers a cure for reverse culture-shock.

Wings

Tales to Go, Travelers’ Tales online publication, 2016


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Fez Rushed In

An overwhelming arrival in Fez, Morocco leads to a slow integration of this kaleidoscopic place.

Vignettes & Postcards from Morocco, Reputation Books 2016 (story retitled “Introduction - Kaleidoscoped”)

New Millennium Writings Nonfiction Award, Honorable Mention, 2013

Deep Travel, Notre Dame

The mysterious psyche of Notre Dame cathedral issues a challenge to examine religion.

Wings

Grand Prize Bronze Solas Award for Travel Story of the Year, 2015

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New York State of Mind

The skyline of New York invites visions of the skies of Egypt, Peru, Italy and elsewhere.

Gold Solas Award - Destination, 2015

Duende in the Louvre

Spanish poet Federico García Lorca’s concept of duende, the dark thread that runs through our lives, is presented in bone-chilling reality in Musée du Louvre.

Wings

Medium online

Silver Solas Award - Women’s Travel, 2015

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À Propos de Paris

French photographer Henri Cartier Bresson presents a guided tour of Paris through his eyes.

Wings

Silver Solas Award - Most Unforgettable Character, 2015

Ave Métro

A man playing the oboe in the Paris metro evokes Santana’s album Abraxas.

Wings

Excerpt featured on Nancy Davis Kho’s award-winning site, Midlife Mixtape

Panache Paris, March 2017

Silver Solas Award - Travel and Healing, 2015

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Déjeuner, Normandie

Poem. Savor the perfect day in Normandie, France.

A Taste of Poetry, Walt Whitman Birthplace Association, 2015

The Healing Heights of Machu Picchu

Pablo Neruda’s poem about Machu Picchu offers insight and courage on a trip to Peru.

Adventures of a Lifetime, World Traveler Press, 2015

Silver Solas Award - Travel and Healing, 2012

Tom Howard Short Story Most Highly Commended Award 2012

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Day Dreamer

Two teen boys discover something inside a painting in Musee d’Orsay in Paris that proves that the artist achieved his most audacious goal.

Wings

The Best Women’s Travel Writing volume 10

Points North Atlanta magazine, November, 2013 issue

New Millennium Writings Nonfiction Award Honorable Mention 2013

Silver Solas Award - Family Travel, 2013

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Signs

After a crisis, every wish made during a day in Paris comes true.

Wings

Bronze Solas Award - Destination 2014

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Café de Nuit

Poem. Come inside Vincent van Gogh’s Night Café for a romantic interlude.

Burning the Midnight Oil, anthology edited by Phil Cousineau, 2013

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Coltrane Twilight

Poem. An ode to John Coltrane’s song, Central Park West.

Burning the Midnight Oil, anthology edited by Phil Cousineau, 2013

The Live Current of the Story: Q and A with Writer Erin Byrne

As I write, I feel the live current of the story pulsing through me as if I’m a conduit - and I myself am lit up.

W3 Sidecar, 2013

When We Fell in Love (With Reading and Writing)

For me, reading and writing have always been inextricable from travel.

Three Guys One Book, 2013

Author Q and A: Erin Byrne on Travel Writing

All good travel writing, I believe, moves people twice: transports them to a place and shifts them emotionally.

Write On Online, 2013

How to Become a Travel Writer - Writer’s Digest Guest Column

You are the matador. The sun sparkles on your ‘traje de luces’ (suit of lights) as you clutch your scarlet capote. Trumpets blast as the bull that is your story enters the ring. It is at this point that many people drop their true sentences and flee, because as soon as we attempt to pinpoint a focus or impose structure upon the story, it lowers its head and charges. Truth is powerful; its brightness brings on the beast.

Writer’s Digest, 2013

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Reading and Writing Morocco

A House in Fez by Suzanna Clarke takes us into the daily life of vivid, dynamic Fez. The Spider’s House by Paul Bowles goes straight into the most essential challenge of travel.

Shelf Pleasure, 2013

Storykeepers

A seven-year-old in Occupied Paris witnesses the crash of a USAF B-17G in his neighborhood and spends years piecing together the stories of the men on the plane and offering healing to survivors.

Wings

The Best Travel Writing, volume 10

Editor’s Choice Travelers’ Tales April 2013

Grand Prize Bronze Solas Award for Travel Story of the Year, 2013

Tom Howard/John J. Reed Short Story Award, Winning Writers, Second Prize 2013

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The Boy and His Shield

René Psarolis was happily wrapped in his own insulated world. He was seven years old in the summer of 1944, busy trailing behind his big brother Henri and his pals, walking hand-in-hand with his Papa, and blooming under the nourishing care of his Maman, who cleared a path for light in the darkness of the German occupation.

Wild Horses Women on Fire Collection, elj Publications, March 2015

Wings

The Creative Process Exhibition at ECHIC, European Conference for the Humanities, Athens, Greece.

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French Connections

Feel the sizzling synapsis of connection inside a Parisian café.

Wings - sketch by Anna Elkins from Wings

Soul-Making Keats Literary Competition, American Association of Pen Women, First place, memoir vignette, 2013

New Millennium Writings Nonfiction Award Honorable Mention, 2013

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Frank Sinatra in the Early Evening

Poem. Flirting with Frank Sinatra while making dinner in the kitchen.

New Millennium Writings Literary Journal, issue 22

New Millennium Writings Poetry Award Honorable Mention

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Dear Madame Renaud

A woman in Normandy who tended the graves of fallen American soldiers after D-Day offers deep healing from grief decades later.

Wings

Wild Horses Women on Fire Collection, elj Publications, March 2015

Bronze Solas Award - Doing Good or The Kindness of Strangers, 2012

Tom Howard Short Story Most Highly Commended Award, 2012

Red Petals

Short fiction story. After the Liberation of Paris, a model wearing Christian Dior’s New Look is attacked by market women in Montmartre.

VESTOJ: A Journal of Sartorial Matters, Summer 2012 issue, Fashion and Shame

Erin Byrne Blog Red Petals

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Vincent’s Vision: The First of Further Letters of Vincent van Gogh

Perhaps there exists a parallel universe in which Vincent walked up the hill in Auvers-sur-Ouise that summer day in 1890, reached the fields, pulled a gun out of his pocket - and hesitated. This story belongs in that dimension.

Wings

Crab Creek Review Literary Journal 2011, vol.2

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The Taste of This Place

A bite of baguette evokes past eras of Paris.

Wings

Gold Solas Award - Travel and Food, 2011

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The Secret of It

The secrets Parisiennes whispered to me about aging.

Wings

Wild Horses Women on Fire Collection, elj Publications, March 2015

Bronze Solas Award - Travel and Transformation, 2011

Winged Victory: A Pilgrimage to Paris

I clicked along in my Franco Sarto boots, a worldly woman, chic, savvy, but when I saw her posed at the top of the Daru staircase, I stopped and stared. Winged Victory had something I lacked.

Wings

The Best Travel Writing, 2011

World Hum (“Victory at the Louvre”)

Whidbey Island Writer’s Conference Benefactor’s Award First Place Essay

Gold Solas Award - Travel and Transformation, 2010

Editors’ Choice Travelers’ Tales October 2010

The Rarest of Editions

If books are humanity in print, he’s the king of the world. An homage to George Whitman, former proprietor of Shakespeare and Company Bookstore, Paris.

Wings

Vignettes & Postcards anthology, edited by Erin Byrne, Reputation Books 2016

Gold Solas Award -Culture and Ideas, 2010

Editors’ Choice, Travelers’ Tales, April 2010

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Vignettes & Postcards

Writers from all around the world come from the many areas of Paris - on foot, on bicycles, on the metro - to gather in George Whitman’s private library to create something tangible out of the richness of their lives.

Wings

Vignettes & Postcards from Paris

Sketch by Candace Rose Rardon from Vignettes & Postcards from Paris

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Escape

Prose poem based on Henri Cartier Bresson’s photo, Porte d’Aubervilliers

Vignettes & Postcards from Paris

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Placed in the Place

During a crisis, the people who were placed in the place that I love turned out to be what I loved about the place.

Grand Prize, Book Passage Travel Writers’ and Photographers’ Conference, 2009

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Leaning Back Into My Sister’s Spirit

Pikes Peak, Colorado cushions painful memories and grief.

Bronze Solas Award - Family Travel, 2009

Coasting Beyond Boyhood

Pointe du Hoc, a plain high above the Normandy beaches, moves two teen-aged boys beyond boyhood.

Wings

Wanderlust and Lipstick, May 2011

A Rare Blend

A bunch of people travel to the Medoc region of France and mingle together to produce a rare blend.

Writer’s Workshop Review Literary Journal, July, 2008

Wanderlust and Lipstick Wander Women Write Contest Finalist

Peace Matters

Nobel Prize Series 2 - The Nobel Peace Prize in light of David Elliot Cohen’s book, What Matters.

Eight reasons why Barack Obama Earned the Nobel Prize

Matador/Brave New Traveler, October, 2009

Eight Nobel Prize Laureates on How Leadership Can End War

Nobel Prize Series 1

Laureates from around the world remind us that peace is not an antiquated notion, but a real possibility that requires certain qualities in our leaders.

Matador/Brave New Traveler, November 2008

Lessons Abroad

It was an unlikely place for thoughts of American patriotism: A twisting and turning narrow road under a green canopy in the hills of Ireland.

Matador/Brave New Traveler, September, 2008

Goodbye to Bush: Europeans React to President Bush’s Farewell Tour

Europe says goodbye to President Bush, opening a window of opportunity for travelers. Discover what this window hinges on.

Matador/Brave New Traveler, July 2008

Culturedash

Indulge the desire to travel far away from the familiar.

Matador/Brave New Traveler, May 2008

Seine Through Fresh Eyes

A new view of Paris.

Everywhere Magazine, March/April 2008

Everywhere Online

The Fortress of His Mind: Charles d’Orleans’ Captivity in The Tower of London