Interview with David Swanson, author of Air-Conditioned Bus Tours
ABOUT THE BOOK
Who doesn’t like vacations with ultimate relaxation preferences? The type of vacation a person takes depends upon individual desires. Most folks like to be wined-n-dined and pampered as if they’ve snuck into the 1/10 of 1% demographic.
A few eccentrics prefer different vacations. Developing the ability to ignore inconveniences that’s like a gym rat who refuses to believe their feet smell. DARREN, prefers these vacations. Being a backpack traveler, he’s just returned from his latest adventure and receives a call from his cousin informing him that their uncle, JORGE DaSILVA, would like to take a niece/nephew cruise. Jorge has lots of money. Darren becomes skeptical concerning the trip since this isn’t his idea of interesting adventure. RYAN mentions that Darren prefers adventures where the excitement comes from doing things off-thecuff. Street stall cuisine, park-bench accommodations, and having an AR-15 pointed at your skull.
Initially, Darren refuses to participate and various individuals including sister, GRETCHEN, try to change his mind. Manipulations eventually has him participating. Then, a monkey wrench gets thrown in when Jorge suffers a mild heart attack. He recovers, and the rivercruise vacation occurs. Things get stranger (if that’s possible…) Jorge tells Darren that he wishes he could’ve done these rough-n-tumble vacations when he was younger. Having just participated in a cruise, Darren wants to continue his backpack vacations right up until the day he’s forced to do the Barca-lounger thing. Eating pre-chewed meals through a straw.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
This is not your conventional, sleep-inducing, writer’s biography. Individuals may experience chuckles. David Swanson is a writer/novelist who lives in Southwest Colorado. He writes non-fiction and fiction with a humorous/satirical bent. He’s just that passionate about writing in this style.
He did not obtain his Bachelor’s in creative writing from the University of Colorado, instead earning a B.A. in Biology. This degree opened up many doors in the area of outdoor, blue-collar-type jobs. The B.A. also dispelled the assertion that you can’t find a job with only a biology-B.A. It got him a U.S. Peace Corps forestry position. Mr. Swanson has won numerous regional awards for his writing. He’s been published. Name recognition is nice, but he’s confronted with the fact that literary entities pay him the money equivalent to that of the Bhutanese naval budget. A life-long obsession with comic book collecting has influenced the writing. Obviously, proving this isn’t possible.
He established a writing website (www.humorouswriter.com) where he posts short stories and essays. This posting of material to the site avoids lawsuits being filed against him. Mr. Swanson attended cartooning school from 1986-89. His time training and work as a cartoonist/illustrator has subconsciously influenced his writing (yeah right?)
Who doesn’t like vacations with ultimate relaxation preferences? The type of vacation a person takes depends upon individual desires. Most folks like to be wined-n-dined and pampered as if they’ve snuck into the 1/10 of 1% demographic.
A few eccentrics prefer different vacations. Developing the ability to ignore inconveniences that’s like a gym rat who refuses to believe their feet smell. DARREN, prefers these vacations. Being a backpack traveler, he’s just returned from his latest adventure and receives a call from his cousin informing him that their uncle, JORGE DaSILVA, would like to take a niece/nephew cruise. Jorge has lots of money. Darren becomes skeptical concerning the trip since this isn’t his idea of interesting adventure. RYAN mentions that Darren prefers adventures where the excitement comes from doing things off-thecuff. Street stall cuisine, park-bench accommodations, and having an AR-15 pointed at your skull.
Initially, Darren refuses to participate and various individuals including sister, GRETCHEN, try to change his mind. Manipulations eventually has him participating. Then, a monkey wrench gets thrown in when Jorge suffers a mild heart attack. He recovers, and the rivercruise vacation occurs. Things get stranger (if that’s possible…) Jorge tells Darren that he wishes he could’ve done these rough-n-tumble vacations when he was younger. Having just participated in a cruise, Darren wants to continue his backpack vacations right up until the day he’s forced to do the Barca-lounger thing. Eating pre-chewed meals through a straw.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
This is not your conventional, sleep-inducing, writer’s biography. Individuals may experience chuckles. David Swanson is a writer/novelist who lives in Southwest Colorado. He writes non-fiction and fiction with a humorous/satirical bent. He’s just that passionate about writing in this style.
He did not obtain his Bachelor’s in creative writing from the University of Colorado, instead earning a B.A. in Biology. This degree opened up many doors in the area of outdoor, blue-collar-type jobs. The B.A. also dispelled the assertion that you can’t find a job with only a biology-B.A. It got him a U.S. Peace Corps forestry position. Mr. Swanson has won numerous regional awards for his writing. He’s been published. Name recognition is nice, but he’s confronted with the fact that literary entities pay him the money equivalent to that of the Bhutanese naval budget. A life-long obsession with comic book collecting has influenced the writing. Obviously, proving this isn’t possible.
He established a writing website (www.humorouswriter.com) where he posts short stories and essays. This posting of material to the site avoids lawsuits being filed against him. Mr. Swanson attended cartooning school from 1986-89. His time training and work as a cartoonist/illustrator has subconsciously influenced his writing (yeah right?)
Category
😹
FunTranscript
00:00This is Speaking of Writers, I'm Steve Richards.
00:07This is the Speaking of Writers podcast.
00:10I'm Steve Richards.
00:11The book is air-conditioned, bus tours.
00:14The author is David Swanson.
00:16So who doesn't like vacations with ultimate relaxations?
00:20The vacation a person takes depends upon individual desires.
00:24Of course, most folks like to be wined and dined.
00:28A few prefer different vacations, developing the ability to ignore inconveniences.
00:33Darren prefers these vacations. Being a backpacker,
00:37he's just returned from his latest adventure and receives a call informing him
00:42that their uncle, Jorge da Silva, would like to take a niece-nephew cruise.
00:47So Jorge has lots of money. Darren becomes skeptical concerning the trip,
00:52since this isn't his idea of adventure.
00:54Ryan mentioning that Darren prefers adventures
00:57where the excitement comes from doing things off the cuff.
01:01Initially, Darren refuses participation and various individuals try to change his mind.
01:06Eventually, they have him participating.
01:11It is a river cruise vacation which occurs
01:14and then things get stranger after Jorge suffers a mild heart attack.
01:19He recovers. Jorge tells Darren that he wishes he could have done these rough
01:23and tumble vacations when he was younger. Having just participated in a cruise,
01:26Darren wants to continue his backpack vacations.
01:31David Swanson is different. Individuals reading this may experience laughter.
01:38David is eccentric, a humorous writer,
01:41novelist who lives in beautiful Southwest Colorado,
01:45the Southwest Colorado mountain town of Silverton.
01:47He writes nonfiction and fiction,
01:50with the only requirement being that the piece has to be comedic or humorous.
01:56He's just that passionate about it.
01:58He didn't obtain his bachelor's degree in creative writing from CU Boulder.
02:02Instead, he earned a biology BA,
02:06and this is a good thing for his writing because the environmental science degree
02:10opened many doors in the area of outdoor blue-collar type jobs.
02:15Happy to have David Swanson join me here on Speaking of Writers.
02:19Welcome to this program. Well, thanks a lot.
02:22Thank you very much for having me. So David,
02:25how did you come up with the idea for this novel?
02:30You know, love to travel. I've been a,
02:32I think it's something that I inherited from my background
02:37because my mom grew up in China and some part,
02:42I'm Macanese, that's Portuguese people that lived in China
02:46and they've been there for many generations.
02:48My father's family, northern Italian from the Tyrol region of northern Italy,
02:54and they immigrated to America. So I have a real diverse background
02:59and I've been able to do a lot of traveling.
03:01I actually lived in Kenya in East Africa for a while
03:05and I've lived in Australia and I, because I'm such a,
03:08I'm so obsessed with mountains. I love to travel to places that have mountains.
03:13So I've been to Peru, Nepal, Tibet.
03:16I want to go to Patagonia someday, you know,
03:19I just came back from living in Colorado. I'm a big skier.
03:24I just came back from a ski trip that my buddy
03:27and I went to Japan this past winter and that was unbelievable.
03:32You know, we went to the northern island of Japan,
03:34which is Hokkaido and that place gets more snow than anywhere else in the world.
03:40It's just mountains and mountains of snow.
03:44So if you're the type of person that doesn't like snow
03:47and cold, you probably don't want to go there.
03:50But I've had a chance to travel a lot of different places
03:53and I really enjoy it and that's kind of been the inspiration for the writing of this novel.
04:02I wanted to do something that this is semi-autobiographical,
04:07this novel, but I wanted to do something a little bit different
04:10because it's fiction and I'm so upset.
04:13Like you said, I'm obsessed with humorous writing.
04:17I love humor and that became like a big impetus for the story,
04:23you know, and I enjoyed that aspect of it.
04:27Where did that obsession come from
04:28and did you always want to be a writer? Not necessarily.
04:33When I first went to college
04:37and got my bachelor's in environmental biology,
04:39that's what got me into the Peace Corps and I pursued,
04:45after I came back to America, I pursued graphic arts
04:50and I went to a cartooning school in New Jersey of all places
04:54and that was a great thing.
04:55But there was just some voice in the back of my head that kept saying,
05:00you know, there's got to be something else.
05:02I wasn't, I loved doing the artwork and cartooning
05:06and things like that, but I was never passionate about it.
05:09And then I just started writing one day and it's just like,
05:13it's steamrolled from there
05:16and it's just something that I'm obsessed with.
05:19It seems like every day I have to do a little bit of writing,
05:22you know, some of one form or another.
05:25And I like doing fiction as well as nonfiction
05:29because the nonfiction I've had, the town where I live,
05:33it's where I grew up, it's in the southwestern part of Colorado
05:37in the San Juan Mountains.
05:39And for those who aren't familiar with that area,
05:42you probably heard about a place called Telluride,
05:44which is on the other side of the mountain from Silverton.
05:47And I don't know, I'm biased,
05:50but I think our mountains are the pretty mountains of Colorado.
05:53Now the mountains up around Denver and stuff,
05:55they're nice and everything,
05:57but they don't have, they don't hold the candle to the San Juans.
06:01And that was kind of the inspiration that I got for writing the book.
06:05And I just, I started writing it
06:10and the ideas just flowed from there, which was great.
06:15Yeah, I really enjoyed it.
06:17It was a fun experience.
06:19You said somewhat of an autobiography.
06:22So how much of you and which character is most closely aligned with you, if any?
06:28Probably the protagonist more than anything else, Darren.
06:32His character was based on a friend of mine from Australia
06:37and he kind of, the inspiration kind of came from him.
06:40He's a bit of a smartass and so is his sister.
06:45The interesting thing, I kind of changed it from my own background
06:50because I have four sisters,
06:52but this Darren character in the novel,
06:56he only has one sister and his parents were killed in a car accident.
07:01Now his uncle has a tremendous amount of money
07:04and he's very magnanimous
07:06and he wants to do something nice before he goes to meet his maker.
07:12And so he decides that he wants to take his nieces
07:16and nephews on this river cruise.
07:18The thing is, this river cruise is so different
07:21from the type of vacation that Darren does because he's a backpacker.
07:25He likes to do this backpack stuff where it's rough and ready
07:28and you have to deal with the inconveniences
07:32as opposed to going on a cruise where everything is done for you
07:36and your meals are all taken care of, that kind of thing.
07:41But he gets talked into going on this
07:43and then from there, the adventures that happen when this takes place.
07:49Yeah, these river cruises are so popular now.
07:54They very much so. The cruise in the fictional story in the novel
07:59is a cruise down the Danube River in Europe.
08:03And part of the reason they do that is because uncle,
08:08Jorge da Silva, he enjoys the whole thing about reading espionage novels,
08:17that type of thing. That was the reason that he chose that.
08:22And at first Darren doesn't want to do it,
08:23but he gets talked into it by his cousins and his sister
08:27and various friends and family. And there's one set of friends
08:32because he works at the library in this small town where he lives
08:36and they try to convince him not to go on this cruise,
08:39you know, because they think he's compromising his principles by doing that.
08:44But eventually in the end, he's convinced that he should do it
08:48because part of the reason he's convinced to do it is
08:51because he finds out that his uncle is not,
08:55he's not going to get any of the inheritance if he doesn't go on the cruise.
09:00So that was a big impetus for him to do that.
09:04You know, he decides to do it. Let's talk family for a moment.
09:09What is your relationship with your siblings and first cousins?
09:12Pretty good. Pretty good. I've got two sisters that live in the Denver Metro area
09:19and then I've got one sister that lives down in Texas
09:22and another sister that's in this area,
09:24but she's moved back and forth to Denver. She's living in Denver right now.
09:28The nice thing about Colorado is 70% of the population in the state of Colorado
09:35is in that corridor between Fort Collins and Pueblo on the Front Range.
09:40That's what they influence a lot of what happens.
09:43Now the western slope of Colorado is growing tremendously,
09:46you know, with all these ski towns and resorts and things like that,
09:50but it's still not growing as fast as Denver.
09:53The Denver Metro area is just exploding,
09:56you know, becoming like a lot of parts of the country like Austin, Texas.
10:00Yes. Oh, yeah, you know,
10:04like where I am here in Asheville, North Carolina, the mountains, same thing.
10:08Yeah, just booming. Yeah.
10:10And I think part of the reason is to booming here is
10:13because of the whole issue with global warming
10:17and it's getting so hot down in New Mexico
10:21and places like Phoenix and Dallas and LA
10:25that a lot of the people when they go on vacation,
10:28they want to come up to the mountains where it's nice and cool
10:32and that's part of the reason that it's exploding around here.
10:35Now we do have very long winters where I live in Silverton
10:39because our altitude is pretty high.
10:41We're at 9,300 feet in elevation
10:45and it's going to start getting cold at the end of September
10:48and then we're going to have snow until about the middle of April,
10:51you know, so it lasts a while
10:54and I think in order to live here and be happy,
10:57you have to enjoy doing a lot of outdoor things, skiing, snowboarding,
11:02a lot of I've got a number of friends that do a lot of backcountry skiing
11:07and snowboarding that type of thing.
11:10It's an interesting environment if you like to do those kind of things.
11:14Summertime is great because there's so many opportunities for hiking.
11:18There's tons of places that you can hike around here.
11:21We're close to the desert too.
11:24You can get from here to the Grand Canyon in four hours,
11:27you know, we're really close.
11:30Great spot, yeah.
11:31Yeah, you can get to Moab really close.
11:33We're really close there. That's like three hour drive from here.
11:37Now, we're actually a six hour drive up to the Denver from here
11:42because we're way down the southern end of the state,
11:44the Four Corners region where four states meet.
11:48But all this traveling and going on all these adventures
11:53was kind of the big inspiration for writing the novel,
11:57you know, that's where I got a lot of the ideas.
12:01Yeah, you've been to so many interesting places.
12:04It had to, of course, influence the writing here.
12:07Oh, I think it has. I think a big influence for me is when I was in Peace Corps.
12:12I was very lucky when I was in Peace Corps because Kenya at that time,
12:18and it still is, I mean, they've got, you know, the population has exploded over there.
12:23But I was working as a forester
12:26and I got to do a lot of traveling when I was living over there.
12:29I lived in an area of Kenya called the Central Highlands around Mount Kenya
12:35and climbed Mount Kenya a couple times, climbed Kilimanjaro,
12:39climbed the Mountains of the Moon, the Ruins Zoris in Western Kenya,
12:43in Western Uganda, and went down to the coast.
12:46But I had some great adventures when I was living over there.
12:50And that was, I mean, Peace Corps is so funny.
12:54You talk to some people and they'll say, oh, it was the best experience of my life.
12:58I loved it. I loved the work that I was doing.
13:01I loved the people. It was great.
13:02But then you talk to somebody else and I say, that was the biggest waste of time in my life.
13:06You know, I don't even know why I did it, you know.
13:10So you get varying things because, I mean, person that might have been in Estonia in 1991,
13:18their experience is totally different from a person that was in Guatemala in 1978,
13:23or a person that was in Kenya in 1982, 83, like me.
13:29You know, different experience based on the type of work that you're doing,
13:34the environment that you're living in, where you live in, you know, the people that you interact with.
13:40A different time period too, yeah.
13:42Yes, very much so.
13:46Now, you know, I've had friends that have spent time in,
13:51they were in the Peace Corps in Eastern Europe after the wall came down and the Soviet Union disappeared.
13:59And their experience is completely different from,
14:02I had another friend that was a volunteer in Costa Rica, not Costa Rica, but Panama.
14:09And their experience was completely different.
14:12And these days, I think the requirements to get into Peace Corps are a lot more stringent than they used to be.
14:19Like if you go to a Spanish speaking country, you have to be able to speak some Spanish before you even go there.
14:26David, where did the title come from, Air Conditioned Bus Tours? Not to give away too much.
14:31Okay, my cousin and I, we were able to do a lot of traveling.
14:37And one of the first trips I went on with him is we went to Nepal and we were in Kathmandu.
14:44And then we booked this tour. This was in the days when you could go into China.
14:50You can't do that anymore. You have to go out.
14:53So what we did is we booked this four-wheel drive tour that went from Kathmandu up onto the Tibetan Plateau and ended in Lhasa, Tibet.
15:02And that was just amazing. That was just an incredible experience.
15:07It's changed a lot since then.
15:09Now they have a train that goes all the way from Beijing up to Lhasa.
15:15And the Chinese government, they're very strict about where tourists can go.
15:20You have to have an itinerary and that type of thing.
15:24It's a little bit looser in those days, but the Air Conditioned Bus Tours came from, he coined that term when we were on that trip.
15:31And then he embellished it a little bit when we went to Peru, because I went on a trip with him to Peru.
15:38And we talked about it.
15:40And I gave him such a hard time because he lives in the Bay Area, San Francisco.
15:45He lives in the Oakland Hills. And I live here in Colorado.
15:49And he got deathly sick from the high altitude sickness when we were in Peru.
15:54You know, we went up to Lake Titicaca and a few other places and he just got sick.
16:02And I gave him such a hard time. I kept teasing him all the time about that.
16:07But after I'd written the story and I sent him the first draft of the novel for him to read it, he read it and he thought to himself,
16:17you coined that term for me, didn't you? And I said, I sure did.
16:23Stole that one from him. Yes. Borrowed it from him.
16:26Yeah. Air Conditioned Bus Tour is the book. It's available, by the way, at WritersRepublic.com,
16:31also Amazon.com, too, and at your independent bookstore as well.
16:36If they don't have it, tell them to get it. Give them the ISBN number.
16:41Give them the ISBN number. That's right.
16:44All right, David. You live in Asheville.
16:48Yes, Asheville, North Carolina. Only time I've ever been to North Carolina is I had a I had one of my buddies from Peace Corps and he was going to graduate school, College Triangle.
16:59He was at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
17:02Yeah. And that was the only time I'd ever been to North Carolina.
17:07Yeah, it's beautiful here, too. We have mountains.
17:08Not as you know, I'm at twenty five hundred feet right now, but not not what you're at.
17:13But you're at sea level. It goes up from sea level. You start high, you know, that kind of thing.
17:19He's David Swanson. The book is Air Conditioned Bus Tours, again, available at WritersRepublic.com, Amazon.com.
17:26And it's your independent bookstore, too. David, thank you so much for joining.
17:30Thank you for pushing the independent bookstore thing.
17:32I really. Absolutely. I'm constantly telling my friends, well, you can get a copy of the book, but you should buy it through an independent bookstore.
17:39But it cost you a little bit more money, but it's worth it. Shop local.
17:44Exactly. Exactly. That's what you have to do.
17:48Thank you for joining me. All right. All right.
17:51David Swanson. Thanks for talking to me. All right.
17:55Air Conditioned Bus Tours is the book. And this is Speaking of Writers.
18:00This is Speaking of Writers. I'm Steve Richards.