Accolades

The Artichoke Trail received a Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Award from the Society of American Travel Writers.

What the Book is About

The Artichoke Trail is a comprehensive guidebook for vegetarians traveling through the U.S. Alongside restaurant reviews and farmers’ market listings, it includes some rather humorous city and state descriptions to guide readers in their discovery of local vegetarian options. The book was published in 2000 by Hunter Publishing. Copies are still available at both retail and online outlets. It’s a fun read, although, because of the unstable nature of the restaurant business, much of the information is archaic.

How The Artichoke Trail Came to be Published

It is comforting to know that a good idea and the potential for good writing can still sell a book. At the time that I wrote The Artichoke Trail, I had almost no previous publications. I had concocted the idea of writing a travel guide for vegetarians, ascertained that such a book did not currently exist, and put together a well-thought out book proposal with a chapter sample. It occurred to me that it was highly unlikely that someone would publish a book written by someone with no previous publications and whose only experience in the food industry was as a waiter, but being young and hopeful I pressed on.

I sent my proposal to 10 travel book publishers. I spent a good deal of time at bookstores to find the major players, and Hunter Publishing was included in my list. At the time, the three months that I waited for a response seemed an eternity, but looking back on it three months is an extremely short amount of time to wait to get your first book published.

Michael Hunter took a chance on The Artichoke Trail. He agreed with me that there might be a niche for my book, and for reasons I still can’t fathom, decided to give me an advance for it despite my meager publishing history.

In the end, the book was a nightmare to write, and cost me far more money than it earned me, but it did receive some nice attention and the aforementioned award. It also was the start to my writing career, and for that I am eternally grateful.