Sam Baldwin on Japan, Slovenia, and Why Travel Memoir Still Matters

It's one thing to move to a foreign country, learn something of the language, and challenge your own understanding of how life should be. It's quite another to write about it. The "expat in Japan" memoir is such a common trope that it's rare for a book to break out. But Sam's did, emphatically. Replete with witty banter about the overlooked rural Japanese experience, For Fukui Sake sold over 11,000 copies and has garnered more than 1,000 reviews on Amazon, most of them emphatically positive. Sam followed this up with Dormice & Moonshine about this time in Slovenia, and has launched the Travel Memoir Review to celebrate the achievements of his fellow travel writers and help readers make more informed choices. Sam joined the travel writing podcast to talk about what makes a good (and marketable) travel memoir, why he chose to self-publish his first book, the enduring relevance of travel writing in the time of AI, and how to get involved with the Travel Memoir Review.