Deviate Podcast Por Rolf Potts arte de portada

Deviate

Deviate

De: Rolf Potts
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Rolf Potts veers off-topic in this unique series of conversations with experts, public figures, and intriguing people. Biografías y Memorias Ciencias Sociales Escritos y Comentarios sobre Viajes Filosofía
Episodios
  • Traveling as a writer, and awkward book-tour experiences, with Anthony Doerr (from 2012)

    Traveling as a writer, and awkward book-tour experiences, with Anthony Doerr (from 2012)
    Nov 4 2025
    “I’m interested in writing because I don’t want to sleepwalk through life. I feel like we have an appallingly brief time on earth, and we’re here to see and understand and do as much good as we can before we’re gone.” –Anthony Doerr In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Anthony talk about how the pace of travel changes the experience of travel, and what it’s like to travel as a writer (2:45); how to manage the local and the global, the specific and the universal, the concrete and the speculative, in one’s writing (12:30); how the idea of “home” influences one’s craft as a writer who travels (23:00); common mistakes writers make when writing about places and cultures they don’t know well, and humiliating travel (and book-tour) experiences (31:00). Anthony Doerr is a novelist and essayist, and short story writer. His 2014 novel All the Light We Cannot See won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and was made into a Netflix miniseries in 2023. Books and authors mentioned: Four Seasons in Rome, by Anthony Doerr (book)The Vagabond’s Way, by Rolf Potts (book)Daniel Woodrell (novelist)Aimee Nezhukumatathil (poet and essayist)Benjamin Percy (author, essayist and comic book writer)Paul Theroux (travel writer and novelist)Bob Shacochis (novelist and literary journalist)Peter Hessler (travel writer and journalist)Tony D’Souza (novelist)Marco Polo Didn’t Go There, by Rolf Potts (book)Travels in Alaska, by John Muir (book)Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov (book)Joseph Conrad (Polish-British novelist)Wade Davis (Canadian author and anthropologist)Jared Diamond (author and historian)Gina Ochsner (novelist and short story writer) Other links: Downton Abbey (British historical drama TV series)“My Beirut Hostage Crisis,” by Rolf Potts (travel essay)“The Hunter’s Wife,” by Anthony Doerr (short story)“Querencia,” by Suzannah Lessard (New Yorker article)Querencia (Spanish mystical concept)Jardin des Plantes (botanical garden in Paris)Corsac fox (steppe fox found in Mongolia)Pantheon (ancient Roman temple)“On Native Ground,” by Wade Davis (essay)“The Deep,” by Anthony Doerr (short story) The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.
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    42 m
  • Talking with my parents about how to handle it when your parents die (in memory of Alice Potts, 1943-2025)

    Talking with my parents about how to handle it when your parents die (in memory of Alice Potts, 1943-2025)
    Sep 30 2025

    Note: This encore episode is dedicated to the memory of Alice Potts, who died on August 20, 2025, aged 81.

    “In America aging is often seen as an insult rather than an inevitable human process. We don’t celebrate getting older; we ‘fight’ age by pretending to be young.” –Rolf Potts

    In this episode of Deviate Rolf and his parents, Alice and George Potts, talk about how surviving the COVID-19 pandemic has changed their relationship, and how it gave them a pretext to go through a “death checklist” together (3:00); how one’s grandparents and parents live on in one’s memories and one’s conversations, the life-values they passed on, and what it felt like when those loved ones declined and died (14:00); how, over the years, elderly people and philosophers have come to terms with notions of decline and death (31:00); and personal insights about what it’s like to have grown older after having lived a long life (44:00).

    George and Alice Potts are retired schoolteachers based in Kansas. George taught science at various Wichita high schools, as well as at Friends University, where he pioneered graduate-level programs in Zoo Science and Environmental Studies. He also helped facilitate the Outdoor Wildlife Learning Sites (OWLS) program for the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks. Alice taught second graders in the Wichita public schools for more than 30 years. In 1994 her classes succeed in promoting legislation to declare the barred tiger salamander the Kansas State Amphibian.

    Notable Links:

    • What to Do When a Loved One Dies (AARP death checklist)
    • How we die in America (Deviate episode)
    • The therapeutic uses of reading scripture (Deviate episode)
    • On losing one’s parents to COVID-19 (Deviate episode)
    • 1985 World Series (baseball championship)
    • Joe Louis (20th century boxing champion)
    • John Prine (singer-songwriter)
    • Alzheimer’s disease (chronic neurodegenerative disease)
    • You Are My Sunshine (folk song)
    • Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone (folk song)
    • Ecclesiastes (book in the Old Testament of the Bible)
    • Epistle of James (book in the New Testament of the Bible)
    • Crowfoot (19th century Siksika First Nation chief)
    • Ted Kaczynski (the Unabomber)
    • Epicurus (ancient Greek philosopher)
    • Varanasi (Hindu holy city in India)
    • Lamentations 3:22-23 (Old Testament Bible verse)

    The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber.

    Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.
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    49 m
  • An audiobook about how (not) to write a travel book: 9 lessons from my failed van-life memoir

    An audiobook about how (not) to write a travel book: 9 lessons from my failed van-life memoir
    Sep 2 2025
    “No endeavor to write a travel book is ever lost, since it gives you a useful perspective on (and intensified attention to) the reality of the travel experience itself. When embraced mindfully, the real-time experience of a journey is invariably its truest reward.” –Rolf Potts In this episode of Deviate, Rolf touches on nine lessons from attempting to write a (never finished) van-life vagabonding memoir at age 23, including: On Pilgrims in a Sliding World (1:00) Lesson #1: No work is lost (and “failure” has lessons to teach) On the author as a character (6:30) Lesson #2: “Show, don’t tell” is still good narrative advice On depicting other people (14:30) Lesson #3: Travel books require reporting (not just recollecting) On recounting dialogues (22:30) Lesson #4: Be true to what was said (but make sure it serves a broader purpose) On veering from the truth (32:30) Lesson #5: The truth tends to work better than whatever you might make up On depicting places (39:30) Lesson #6: “Telling details” are better than broad generalizations about a place On neurotic young-manhood (48:30) Lesson #7: Balance narrative analysis with narrative vulnerability The seeds of Vagabonding (1:01:30) Lesson #8: Over time, we write our way into what we have to say The journey was the point (1:06:30) Lesson #9: In the end, taking the journey counts for more than writing it Books mentioned: The Geto Boys, by Rolf Potts (2016 book)Vagabonding, by Rolf Potts (2003 book)The Anxiety of Influence, by Harold Bloom (1973 book)On the Road, by Jack Kerouac (1957 book)The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger (1951 book)Epic of Gilgamesh (12th century BCE Mesopotamian epic)Don Quixote, by Miguel de Cervantes (17th century novel)The Travels of Sir John Mandeville (14th century travelogue)True History, by Lucian of Samosata (2nd century novella)Three Cups of Tea, by Greg Mortenson (21st century memoir)Marco Polo Didn't Go There, by Rolf Potts (2008 book)Labels: A Mediterranean Journal, by Evelyn Waugh (1930 book) Essays, poems, and short stories mentioned "The Mystical High Church of Luck," by Rolf Potts (1998 essay)"Greenland is Not Bigger Than South America", by Rolf Potts (1998 essay)“The Faces,” by Robert Creeley (1983 poem)"Reflection and Retrospection," by Phillip Lopate (2005 essay)"Why so much travel writing is so boring," by Thomas Swick (2001 essay)"10 Rules of Writing," by Elmore Leonard (2001 essay)"In the Penal Colony," by Franz Kafka (1919 short story) Places and events mentioned People's Park (activist park in Berkeley)924 Gilman Street (punk-rock club in Berkeley)Alphabet City (neighborhood New York City's East Village)Brentwood (Los Angeles neighborhood)1994 Northridge earthquakePanama City Beach (Florida spring-break city)Gainesville (Florida college town)Athens (Georgia college town)Big Sur (coastal region of California)Humboldt Redwoods State Park (park in California) Other links: "Van Life before #VanLife" (Deviate episode)Paris Writing Workshops (Rolf's annual creative writing classes)Picaresque (prose genre)Roman à clef (fictionalized novel about real-life events)"Jumping freight trains in the Pacific NW" (Deviate episode)"Telling travel stories, with Andrew McCarthy" (Deviate episode)"Rolf Potts: The Vagabond's Way" (Ari Shaffir's Skeptic Tank podcast)"A personal history of my grunge-bandwagon band" (Deviate episode)Gettysburg Address (Abraham Lincoln speech)José Ortega y Gasset (Spanish philosopher)Jack Handey (American humorist known for "Deep Thoughts" jokes)Laurel Lee (American memoirist) The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.
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    1 h y 12 m
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