Interview with Brenda E. Smith, Author of Becoming Amazed: Discovering the World with Eyes Wide Open

What’s the story behind the story? What inspired you to write Becoming Amazed: Discovering the World with Eyes Wide Open?

Becoming Amazed: Discovering the World with Eyes Wide Open picks up where my first book, Becoming Fearless: Finding Courage in the African Wilderness, left off. In 1981, my boss, the founder of Sobek Expeditions, decided his shy, naïve 28-year-old financial manager (me) needed to go on a real adventure. I’d never been outside the borders of the U.S., except on a family vacation to Canada. I had no intention of leaving our country. My boss had other plans when he announced I would accompany him as a part of the crew that would raft 170 miles down a river teeming with hippos and crocodiles in Tanzania, followed by a climb of Mount Kilimanjaro using a seldom used trail. Terrified, I wanted no part of his grand plan. I searched for an excuse to escape the fate I feared awaited us. I never found one. The trip profoundly changed my outlook on the world. From being someone instinctively afraid of the unknown, I reluctantly stepped outside my comfort zone, into a world I never knew existed. I became amazed as we passed through wilderness never touched by humans, traveling in close proximity to “killer beasts” who seemed as curious about us as we were about them. Slowly, my fear melted, replaced with curiosity and awe. By the end of this physically demanding trip, newfound courage filled me with confidence. I yearned to experience more of the world through the eyes of an explorer. For the following few decades, I lived and traveled abroad in forty countries around the world. I actively sought adventures in places off the beaten path. In Becoming Amazed, I take the reader with me on eight unforgettable adventures in six countries during the 1980s, some that are no longer possible to replicate.

If you had to pick theme songs for the main characters of Becoming Amazed: Discovering the World with Eyes Wide Open, what would they be?

Since both my books are travel memoirs, my personal theme song is Jimmy Buffet’s “Changes in Latitude, Changes in Attitude”. I actually started my first book with the sentence, “I blame Jimmy Buffet.” for filling my head with ideas of traveling around the world, meeting people, and laughing a lot.

What’s your favorite genre to read? Is it the same as your favorite genre to write?

I love to read about other author’s travel adventure stories, since I write in that genre. But I also enjoy a good mystery like Tess Gerritsen’s The Spy Coast, or well-written fiction stories that open my mind to a different point of view like Percival Everett’s James.

What books are on your TBR pile right now?

Too many, I’m afraid. Kristin Hannah’s “The Women” and “The Great Alone”, Robin Wall Kimmerer’s “Braiding Sweet Grass”, Abraham Verghese’s “The Covenant of Water”, and Kate Quinn’s “The Briar Club” are a few I’m hoping to dive into soon.

What scene in your book was your favorite to write?

My favorite chapter in Becoming Amazed is called “Almost a Kidnapper”. It takes place in Islamabad, Pakistan, between 1983 and 1986, where I worked for the US Government State Department. Having grown up during the hippie days of Woodstock, when women were fighting for equal rights and young couples frequently lived together before marriage, I struggled mightily with Islam’s culture of arranged marriages and women’s lack of rights of any kind in Pakistan. The chapter describes my experience of learning the details of and taking part in a wedding ceremony of a local staff’s family member. It also expresses the conflict and anger I felt when the family of my young female seamstress arranges her marriage to an older man from a remote village with one wife and several children, as his second wife.

Do you have any quirky writing habits? (lucky mugs, cats on laps, etc.)

I do my best writing between 11 pm and 4 am when it is totally quiet. On my desk I have a Telly award statue I won for a video I produced in 1998 around whose neck is a quilted heart ornament that says, “The only constant in life is change.” There is also a blown glass blonde mermaid holding a shell, a picture of me when I was 29 guiding on a raft trip in Alaska, and a small framed picture of an aerial picture of a braided jungle river with a caption mashed-up from a writing class and my Tanzania river trip. It reads, “Stay to the left, fail and fail better until you find solid shore.”

Do you have a motto, quote, or philosophy you live by?

Be true to thine self.

If you could choose one thing for readers to remember after reading your book, what would it be?

That there is no substitute for experiencing people, places and things in person. I encourage everyone to take that scary step, (or leap), out of your comfort zone to discover the world beyond your doorstep and US borders. The reward will be a thousand times richer than staying put and safe. Only by seeking and discovering will you know the truth. I hope that by sharing my stories of taking those steps, it will inspire you to discover the world with your own eyes wide open.

Brenda E Smith is the author of the new book Becoming Amazed: Discovering the World with Eyes Wide Open

Connect with Brenda E Smith

Facebook

Buy The Book