Interview: Jen Leo
Prize-Winning Travel Editor, Writer and Starlet

Jen Leo

By Nana Chen - Jen Leo has kept us chuckling with titles like Sand in My Bra and The Thong Also Rises. Now she will be bringing us What Color Is Your Jockstrap? Having worked in publishing, Jen learned early on what it took to keep it all running. What was maybe not so predictable was her success with her blog Written Road. The blog that started out as a personal project has grown into one of the most addictive websites. Jen is as active as she is diverse in her writing, contributing to the gossip column BLUFF as well as a Women Poker Player. But there’s much, much more. Jen is now casting her smile towards other adventures online and on the road.

Nana: Could you please tell us a bit about your background?

Jen: I'm a Hapa from a middle class suburb of San Diego. My mom died when I was three, and I was brought up by my dad and his parents on the Chinese side of my heritage. I've been busy since I was nine. I played softball and soccer, was a girl scout, and took piano lessons. Those were the things that stuck. I also tried swimming, tennis, ballet, and played in the cul-de-sac with the neighborhood kids, back when you could play outside without your parents watching your every move.

Nana: Long before you became a travel writer, editor and a prize-winning journalist, what were your conceptions of traveling? What about travel writing? At what point did you combine traveling with writing?

Jen: Well, first of all, prize-winning journalist is probably an exaggeration. I graduated from Journalism school at USC, but I've never considered myself a journalist. Award-winning editor fits. Now that we've got that out of the way, I can tell you that I've always been drawn to adventure. And even more attracted to fun. Upon ending my time at university, my college boyfriend and I signed up for Bike-Aid. I had never bicycled farther than the post office, but to cycle across the U.S. sounded like a big adventure. I went from Portland, OR to Washington D.C. with nine women. I had a grand fantasy of writing a book about the trip, and a few years later asked Mary Morris what she thought of the story when I was at my first author event at Book Passage. She was reading for her anthology Maiden Voyages, and encouraged me. But, I went back to my journal notes and found that everything I had written was about my long distance love life. I didn't have near the notes required for writing a book. Which made sense, but I knew nothing of writing books then. Reading Tim Cahill's writing in Outside and then his early books Jaguars Ripped My Flesh and Pecked to Death by Ducks is what connected travel to writing for me. Or, at least adventure to writing. It opened my eyes to the possibility of doing both, and that it could be a career path.

Nana: What is it about writing that appeals to you? What about editing? Which process is more gratifying?

Jen: I'm a romantic, but I've never held any romantic ideals about writing. The dream of authoring "The Great American Novel" has never been mine. Writing has been a part of me since I was young. I started a diary at the age of 12, and since then I've felt the urge. Something inside of me calls for a pen. Ideas flood inside of me and taking to the pen is what soothes the feeling. These days, it's different. I might've had that calling when I was younger, but I joined up with Travelers' Tales when I was 23 and essentially grew up in publishing. That experience demystified books for me. We made several books a year. And as I walked through bookstores, not only did I know the process of what it entailed to get an idea onto the shelves, but I could recognize crap. Lots of crap gets published every year, and I find that empowering. Anyone who dreams of being a writer, is closer than [they] think to making it a reality. As for editing, I've learned more about writing through reading other people's stories than I have from writing my own. When you're reading someone else's writing, it's easier to identify what doesn't work, than it is to write something that does work. Seeing the holes in a piece, teaches you what to avoid in your own writing.

Nana: What gave you your first break in the travel writing business?

Jen: My entire experience at Travelers' Tales was a first break. It gave me entry into the entire travel writing community in San Francisco. I was setting up author events as part of my job, and that enabled me to meet lots of published writers. But, if we had to single it out, I'd say having my story "Chinese Like Me" included in A Woman's Passion for Travel was the first milestone.

Sand in My Bra	The Thong Also Rises
Whose Panties are These?	What Color Is Your Jockstrap?

Nana: Let’s talk a bit about your blog, Written Road. How did the idea come about? What were your expectations when you started the blog? Any doubts?

Jen: Sure, it's all connected. I started Written Road, the blog, in 2002. At this point I had been with Travelers' Tales a good many years and had even left the job with them to go see the world a bit myself. I was getting interested in web development and had been sitting on an idea of a website for aspiring travel writers for some time. I was close friends with Sean Keener and Chris Heidrich, the founders of BootsnAll.com. They were making it happen. They were building a travel community and keeping tabs on emerging trends in the online world. When they started doing their BootBlog about the daily activities of their office, I wanted one. Simple as that. And writing a blog was easier than creating a whole website. So, I started. Because of my years at Travelers' Tales I knew that becoming a travel writer didn't have to be just a dream. So, I wanted to share resources with other aspiring travel writers as I learned them myself. It took me several years to get serious about writing, too long in my opinion, and I wanted to shorten that lead time for other writers. If they knew that you could just start, maybe they would. As I got going with it, the blog felt stiff. Then I added my own personal story of making the climb and that's what made the blog. I don’t think I had any expectations of the blog at the time. I just wanted to do it. But now, it's been one of the pillars of my name-building experience and contributed greatly to my success thus far. And even better, I've met many good friends because of it. Doubts? No. Occasional doubts that I could keep it going, but those are past issues. We're only planning on getting bigger at this point.

Nana: How are you able to write, edit and go on all these book tours? When do you have time to relax? What do you do to relax?

Jen: The past couple of years have been very busy in the book department. My favorite part of the process is the marketing side, so I've let that become even more involved than the actual editing part. These days, the books are a smaller part of my life. They've almost become routine. So, I'm taking a break from the humor series with Travelers' Tales. As for relaxing, hmm…good question. Relaxing, or getting the brain to stop going a mile a minute, is not easy for me. But, I do have down time. I've added two things to my life in the past year that contribute to this down time. Poker, and a new boyfriend. Playing cheap online poker is calming for me. And, I've recently moved to Pasadena, CA with the new boyfriend. Our house has an amazing feature where one of our rooms, the room where I work, is lined by big windows. They all open and it creates this calming effect like being on a porch or verandah. I love it. Being in this area is very centering for me. And, when all else fails, red wine and a movie. Those are pleasant failsafe ways [to] slow me down.

Nana: you’ve edited and published three books through Traveler’s Tales, starting with Sand in My Bra , followed by the sequel Whose Panties are These, and, more recently, The Thong Also Rises. These are all based on the underwear theme. What gave you the idea, what triggered you to start this project?

Jen: As I grew into myself at Travelers' Tales, editors James O'Reilly and Larry Habegger knew that they wanted me to edit a book. Our women's series of books like Marybeth Bond's A Woman's World and Gutsy Women were extremely popular. In the same right, so were our humor books like There's No Toilet Paper on the Road Less Traveled, so, it seemed natural to marry the two. They thought my personality fit the topic of a women's humor book, so we went with it. There's no sexy story behind the title Sand in My Bra. We were all racking our brains trying to think of a title that fit a women's book about misadventure. It was our publicist's father who came up with Sand in My Bra and I immediately loved it. Sand was such a hit, we thought we'd do panties next. After that, the fans just wanted more. Everywhere I went they wanted to know what the next book was going to be called. By the third one, people were calling it my underwear empire. Now, we're getting ready to launch our fourth, What Color Is Your Jockstrap?

Nana: Okay. So you had this idea. You knew it was going to be great. What did you do next, because often writers have ideas, they produce something, then what…?

Jen: Actually, I had no idea it was going to take off like it did. It just did. And publishing is a tough business, so what's next was easy. These books were selling like hotcakes, so we wanted to do more.

Nana: In editing the stories, what do you look for? What stories catch your attention, in other words, what elements make a good story for you?

Jen: For me, good writing is a turn on, and bad writing is a turn off. Sounds too simple, but if I'm bored by the first page, I don’t want to read on. If a story makes me laugh out loud, and several times within the story, not just at the end, then it's a keeper. After doing so many of these humor titles, it takes the more outrageous and bizarre stories to make me laugh. So, I highly recommend that writers work on their leads.

Nana: What’s next for you in travel writing and editing? Have you got any plans to do other genre(s) of writing? Or do you already?

Jen: I've started consulting writers through a coop with some friends in the publishing industry, Creative Storefront. In terms of travel -- I'd like to become a travel expert for a women's magazine, and have my own gambling travel show. I also feel like it's time to write a book "By Jennifer Leo" instead of "Edited By." So, I'm finishing up a travel guidebook to Vegas, Night + Day Las Vegas and working on a humorous book from the perspective of being the girlfriend of a poker player. Beyond that, I'm crazy about online marketing and can't get enough of creating viral marketing projects and hope to keep my freelance projects in this direction.