Job Q&A
by Eileen O'Reilly
[ More Job Q&As ]

Mark Jenkins's first book, "Off the Map" (William Morrow, 1992), is the story of the first crossing of Siberia by bicycle, an 8,000-mile, five-month trip. His most recent book, "To Timbuktu" (William Morrow, 1997), describes his adventures paddling the Niger River in West and Central Africa. The New York Times calls it a "laconically engaging account."

Monster.com: When did you first know you wanted to be a writer?

Mark Jenkins: I'm not like those brilliant novelists who at age three were writing books. In college I studied what I loved, took any class I wanted, then declared my major. I graduated and by God no one was hiring philosophers.

Mc: When did you get this travel bug?

MJ: I've been taking long trips since I was 15 -- Africa, Europe and Russia. When I was 12 years old my father took a sabbatical from teaching -- he's a math professor -- and took the family to Holland. I was in total culture shock. I was a kid from the prairie and we were stuck right into Dutch schools where no one spoke English.

Mc: Was it difficult to get a job as an unpublished writer?

MJ: When I first looked for work with the Associated Press and United Press International they laughed in my face. They wanted journalism school graduates, which is a joke, because hardly any good writers studied journalism. So my girlfriend and I spent a year in a cabin in Medicine Bow, Wyoming. We'd do 30-40 mile cross country ski tours during the day and I'd write at night.

Mc: When did you get your big break as a writer?

MJ: I used to buy a ticket to the Outdoor Retailer Show, in Las Vegas, so I could hustle magazine editors. I'd go up to an editor and reel off story ideas and convince them to give me an assignment. So I met the executive editor for Backpacker Magazine, and I started shotgunning this guy with ideas. He listened and he offered me a job as a managing editor. I turned it down at first but he told me I should learn magazines from the inside -- I was a writer so I didn't know the politics and the production. He was right. I moved back east and worked for a year at Adventure Traveler and Cross Country Skiing Magazine. I would consider that my big break.

Mc: What did you do after a year?

MJ: I found out about a trip going to Siberia. I had learned a lot, but I realized I was a writer and I didn't want to work in a corporate environment. When I returned from the trip I took a position that was created for me: Rocky Mountain Editor for Backpacker Magazine. So I could live where I wanted to and write.

Mc: You've just written a well-received book, "To Timbuktu." How did you come to write it?

MJ: After high school my best friend Mike and I took a trip to Europe that led to Africa -- Europe was too tame. We stayed for six months -- this was in 1977 -- and 15 years later both our wives were pregnant so we figured this was it. We had to go back.

Mc: You kayaked the Niger River -- why did you choose to do that?

MJ: It had never been kayaked, so there you go.

Mc: So the book chronicles this adventure?

MJ: It's ostensibly an adventure book. On the river we were chased by hippos (they were swimming after us), stalked by crocodiles and attacked by killer bees. But in fact it's a story of friendship, about my best friend and me. It's a tragedy.

Mc: Don't tell me any more -- I'm planning to read it. What do you think of the current vogue for adventure travel and adventure writing in light of the recent spate of books on Everest?

MJ: A lot of talk about adventure is dishonest and inaccurate. Everest is not a paradigm for adventure anymore, it's a paradigm for Wall Street and greed.

Mc: What's harder: having the adventure or writing about it?

MJ: The writing. You are trying to take all of these experiences and distill them. Writing is the process of creative selection -- you can't tell the whole story. I'm paid not to have an adventure but to come back with a compelling story. When everyone else is asleep in their tents I take voluminous notes by candlelight. I shoot lots of slides.

Mc: What is your writing routine?

MJ: I get up at 5 a.m. and go to my office in the basement -- my wife calls it the dungeon. I've got my library there, and maps covering the windows to block out the light. It's one thing to go to an office and function within a framework where everyone is working. As a writer you have to force yourself to give yourself a time period to write. It's joyful torture.