ONE of the phenomena of the past decade is that strange, hybrid creation known as the travel book. This has nothing to do with the lowly travel guide, which tells you what a country is actually like, how to get there, what to see, where to stay and eat, how much it will all cost, and other such useful information.
The travel writer I'm talking about is generally not much interested in travel as such or places, either, come to that - and the communication of facts is entirely of secondary importance. Instead, this writer (a wannabe novelist usually) has been commissioned to traipse off to some foreign land about which he or she knows very little, to gripe about the dust and heat, to whinge about the dietary disorders incurred along the way, to snigger at the quaint practices of the locals while showing off a lot of irrelevant learning, and to wonder what he or she is doing in a beastly place that doesn't recognise a superior soul when it sees one.
But if it's all so awful, why do these writers undertake the task? Well, it's a foot on the literary ladder, I suppose, and the result might get good reviews from people who think this form of writing actually means something, and then there's the attractive advance from the publisher to think of, too.
And apparently there's also the lure of lots of exotic sex. That certainly seems to have encouraged the small but perfectly formed Paul Theroux, who has spent a literary lifetime travelling throughout every nook and cranny of the globe and revealing to the reader all that he found there.
Well, perhaps not quite all, because in a Sunday Times interview with Simon Sebag Montefiore he declares: "When it comes to sex while travelling, my advice is to try everything once. Travel is all about sex - you re a new person. Nobody knows you. It's an aphrodisiac."
Love in the time of Aids, the 56 year old adventurer agrees, is a bit of a disincentive. He's just come back from a trip "down the Zambezi" where he was propositioned by a 16 year old girl.
He told her that he didn't want to get sick, so she suggested what I can only call various polymorphous perversities. But I said No, actually I think I'd rather prefer a cup of tea'."
I recall that he had lots of tea too while he was amassing material for The Kingdom by the Sea, his 1983 account of travelling around Britain, which was notable for its unflattering portrait of Philip Larkin, whom he encountered in Hull. Maybe Larkin didn't introduce him to any women.
I'VE just received a copy of Writings, which runs to 68 pages, is produced in Dublin, sells at £2.95, and declares on the cover that it's "the magazine that gets you published ... Writers from all over Ireland get into print for the first time."
They certainly do. There are poems, short stories, travel, essays and features galore here, all of them written by people whose names are unfamiliar to me. Indeed, the magazine itself was unknown to me until now, though apparently it's been in existence for some time.
Not a regular existence, though. In his editorial, publisher Edward Browne states that "the reason for the frustrating gaps between publication is very simple - money, or lack of it."
Writings, he says, "is very much a one person operation," which applied for a grant to the Arts Council, "but was unsuccessful."
As for contributors receiving payment: "Fraid there ain't none. So if you are looking for payment, please do not submit material. If and when Writings becomes a reasonably profitable publication, very modest - very modest - payments will be forthcoming."
This doesn't sound satisfactory, and though Mr Browne insists that his magazine is "not a vanity publication" (meaning that he's not demanding payment from contributors: a scam that's all too common), I think he's being a bit disingenuous all the same - people willing to be published without any financial recognition are people who, who, more than anything, wish to see their work and name in print.
Certainly quality control doesn't seem to be part of the magazine's brief. Indeed, Mr Browne, whom I don't know and who is only reachable through a PO box number, declares that "if you pick up a copy of Writings, read a piece and say `I can write as well as that', Writings has done its job." Well, no, it hasn't, not if the contents are generally of a poor standard and are thus fostering poor standards.
BY contrast, standards in the writing and publishing of children's books are generally quite high. In fact, it sometimes seems that more care and imagination go into the creation and producing of children's books than into books for adults.
Children's Books Ireland, which was recently launched by Dr Pat Donlon as a response to the unprecedented increase in numbers and quality of Irish published children's books, has got together with The Ark in Temple Bar to mount an international exhibition of children's book illustrations.
That's currently running in The Ark, and to coincide with it the seventh Children's Literature Summer School will be held from next Friday until tomorrow week. The title of this year's school, which takes place in the Dublin Writers' Museum, Parnell Square, is Letting in the Light; Professor Declan Kiberd will be launching it, and among the writers taking part are Don Conroy, Janni Howker, Aidan Chambers, Benjamin Zephaniah and Melvin Burgess whose controversial new teenage novel, Junk, has just been awarded the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize.
If you wish to attend the whole weekend, the cost is £65 (£55 to CBI members), and the person to contact is Claire Ranson at the Writers' Museum (telephone: 01-8725854).