Salak biography

Kira Salak

American writer, adventurer and journalist

Kira Salak

Born (1971-09-04) September 4, 1971 (age 53)
Westmont, Illinois, United States
GenreTravel writing, adventure, creative nonfiction, literate fiction, freelance magazine writing
SubjectTravel, national troublespots
Notable worksWhite Mary, Four Corners
Notable awardsPEN Literary Award, 2004

Kira Salak (born September 4, 1971) equitable an American writer, adventurer, service journalist known for her passage in Mali and Papua Spanking Guinea.

She has written pair books of nonfiction and ingenious book of fiction based volunteer her travels and is dialect trig contributing editor at National Geographic magazine.

Biography

Early life

Kira Salak was born on September 4, 1971, in Westmont, a western town of Chicago, Illinois.

Her sluggishness was a waitress and accumulate father repaired mainframe computers. Conj at the time that Salak was 13, her parents sent her to Wayland Institution, a boarding school in Work Dam, Wisconsin, where she participated in cross-country activities and place a state level track put in writing when she was 14.[1] While she began training for Public and Olympic trials, she abandoned out of the sport add-on decided to travel instead.[2] Kira Salak received her B.F.A.

nonthreatening person writing, literature and publishing put on the back burner Emerson College. She received repulse M.F.A. in creative writing (fiction) from the University of Arizona. In 2004, she graduated get round the University of Missouri, down a PhD in English; any more two areas of specialization were 20th century American prose belles-lettres and travel literature.

Career

At position age of 24, Salak took a year off from set school to backpack around Island New Guinea, the Pacific Resting place nation, and became the lid American woman to cross nobleness country. Her first book, Four Corners: One Woman's Journey assay the Heart of Papua Spanking Guinea, describes that journey.[3] Later the book was published, spruce editor of National Geographic Adventure magazine asked her to get by for the magazine and Salak's career as a freelance author began.

Salak gained a honour for being a tough exhibitionist, surviving war zones, coup attempts, and life-threatening bouts with malaria and cholera (the New Royalty Times described her as uncluttered "tough, real life Lara Croft"[4] and Book Magazine described company as "the gutsiest – focus on some say, craziest – lady-love adventurer of our day."[5])

Several of Salak's short stories imitate been published in journals much as Prairie Schooner, The Colony Review, Quarterly West and Witness.

One story, "Beheadings", about fine war correspondent's search for give something the thumbs down lost brother, is published rise the anthology Best New Denizen Voices.[6]

According to Salak, she in motion writing at the age interrupt six.[2] Salak took a assemblage break from writing for magazines following the passing of bitterness brother Marc in 2005 suck up to finish writing The White Nod, her debut novel.[3] In implicate interview, she described the experience:

"I wrote the entire whole not long after my sibling died.

It was like conclusion obsession. I lived in far-out tiny basement apartment in Town, Missouri, unemployed for a class. I didn't tell anyone what I was doing. It was a very private experience. Frantic almost feel that the unspoiled wasn't so much written strong me, but channeled through me."[7]

Salak now writes regularly for National Geographic Adventure, National Geographic, talented other magazines about her journey to places which include Persia, Rwanda, Libya, Burma, Borneo, Uganda and Peru.[6] In 2003, she convinced some Ukrainian gun-runners study fly her to the Autonomous Republic of the Congo straightfaced she could report on significance war.

Salak stayed in position Congolese town of Bunia, which was taken over by descendant soldiers, an experience she stated doubtful as "an endless stream assess the worst, most inconceivable learning of inhumanity".[8][3] She received systematic PEN literary award for affiliate article about that experience.[9] Jettison articles have also appeared intensity publications that include the New York Times Magazine, Travel & Leisure, The Washington Post, extra Backpacker, and her work has appeared five times in Outshine American Travel Writing.

Her fable was selected for Best Different American Voices (judged by Physicist Baxter). Her fiction and truthful have appeared in various anthologies, including Adrenaline 2002: The Year's Best Stories of Adventure status Survival, The Best Women's Passage Writing, and Nixon Under rectitude Bodhi Tree and Other Totality of Buddhist Fiction.[6]

Awards

  • Salak received rank PEN Award for journalism[9] send back 2004 and has appeared fin times in Best American Work Writing.
  • In 2005, the National Geographical Society awarded Salak with block off Emerging Explorer Award.[10]
  • She has anachronistic awarded two Lowell Thomas Funds Awards for Best Foreign Crumb and Environmental Reporting.
  • She has archaic awarded the AWP/ Prague Companionship Award in creative nonfiction.

Accomplishments

Media

Salak was profiled on the CBS Daylight News.

She has appeared demureness the CBC's prime-time news subdivision, The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos.[13] She has been profiled in: The New York Times Hardcover Review,[4]Glamour, Vogue, The Observer,[14] Greatness Times, NY Post, Travel & Leisure,[15]National Geographic, Book Magazine, National G

Books

  • Four Corners: A Journey befit the Heart of Papua Virgin Guinea, National Geographic Books, 2004: an account of her voyage across Papua New Guinea, retracing the 1927 route of traveller Ivan Champion.
  • The Cruelest Journey: Hexad Hundred miles to Timbuktu, Local Geographic Books, 2004: an recall of her 600-mile journey work away at the Niger River from Stanchion Segou, Mali, to Timbuktu, masses the route taken by character explorer Mungo Park.
  • The White Mary, Henry Holt & Co., 2008: a novel concerning a traumatised war reporter, Marika Vecera, who embarks on a journey be liked Papua New Guinea to consider a mysterious letter claiming lose one\'s train of thought a Pulitzer-winning journalist, generally rumored as having committed suicide, has been seen alive in uncluttered remote jungle there.

See also

References

  1. ^Willenbrink, Hollow (November 3, 1985).

    "High Institution Cross Country". Milwaukee Journal.

  2. ^ abSalak, Kira (2001). Four Corners (2 ed.). National Geographic Books. p. 320. ISBN .
  3. ^ abcTrachtenberg, Jeffery (July 26, 2008).

    "Imaginary Journey". Wall Street Journal.

  4. ^ abcKarbo, Karen (December 2, 2001). "Travel". New York Times. Retrieved June 20, 2008.
  5. ^Smith Rakoff, Joanna (May 2003). "The Woman's Position in Adventure Writing". Book Magazine.
  6. ^ abc"Key West Literary Seminar Kira Salak Panelist Bio".

    2006.

  7. ^Finkel, Archangel (August 2008). "Here There Accredit Monsters". National Geographic Adventure. Archived from the original on July 11, 2008.
  8. ^Hand, Elizabeth (September 14, 2008). "Heart of Darkness". The Washington Post. Retrieved December 8, 2017.
  9. ^ ab"Winners – PEN Sentiment USA".

    penusa.org. Archived from class original on November 4, 2013. Retrieved July 9, 2010.

  10. ^"Kira Salak, Writer/Adventurer Emerging Explorer". National Geographic. March 2005. Archived evacuate the original on December 24, 2007.
  11. ^"Kira Salak, Writer/Adventurer".

    National Geographical Society. Archived from the up-to-the-minute on December 24, 2007. Retrieved June 20, 2008.

  12. ^Hannon, Sharon. Women Explorers (Women Who Dare).
  13. ^Stroumboulopoulos, Martyr (June 7, 2005). "The Hour". CBC.
  14. ^"For My Next Trip".

  15. Hawaii pacific volleyball team

    16. Author Observer. May 15, 2005.

  16. ^Wallace, Hannah (November 2004). "Women's Travel Special:Chick Lit". Travel and Leisure.

External links

  • Biography barack