SELTI

First Nonfiction Guidebook on Tourism Writing Published

Mary Palmer’s new book offers a blueprint on how universities across the nation can help increase tourism dollars to explosive levels through the medium of literature.

The nation’s first nonfiction guidebook on tourism writing is on the market through Universal Publishers release of Mary Palmer’s Tourism Writing: A New Literary Genre Unveiling the History, Mystery and Economy of Places and Events. Palmer wrote the book through a grant from Faulkner University, which has also conducted several tourism poetry contests. The book introduces the history and development of the genre over the past several years and offers the first ever sample textbook chapter on tourism writing. The book also provides multiple perspectives on the genre from representatives covering the political, educational, and business/tourism spheres—and more importantly how those spheres can all work together to increase tourism dollars exponentially. Palmer’s book details the first economic blueprint for how cities and states across the nation can tap into this vast but largely unexploited new stream of explosive economic development. In a turbulent publishing industry, this book shows how university creative writing programs can generate a massive wave that will change the publishing market forever in a positive direction, while attracting private/public funding and interest for English degree programs in levels that have never been imagined.

Universities across the nation, along with economic development leaders, can soon use Palmer’s book as a guide on how to train writers to promote their local attractions through the powerful medium of literature combined with existing resources that have never been harnessed together before.

Mary Palmer, who teaches English at Faulkner University, was recognized in Congress by U.S. Representative Bradley Byrne for her contributions to tourism fiction after her tourism short story “Raisin’ Cain” won the 2014 SELTI Tourism Fiction Award.