One of my guiding mottos as a writer—and as a person—is that everyone has an interesting story to tell. I think it’s a shame that so many people focus so heavily on celebrities when ordinary folks often have the best stories.
I very much enjoy discovering these stories. One way I do that is by people-watching and shamelessly eavesdropping. Airports are excellent for this activity, but so is anyplace where there are people around. Restaurants, stores, and waiting rooms are all great for that.
Public transportation can also be an interesting way to hear stories. I love traveling by train, and I’ve met some fascinating people that way. On planes I usually prefer to keep to myself, but now and then I have a good chat. Once I sat in first class next to a UPS pilot who had at least seven drinks on a flight from Detroit to San Francisco.and admitted he couldn’t figure out how to work an Apple watch. Once I talked to a woman who bought one of my books right then on her Kindle and read it throughout the flight! That was a little nerve-wracking. I learned on one flight that what Aer Lingus crews look forward to when flying to the US is shopping at Target. I really loved the time I upgraded to first class and discovered Buzz Aldrin was sitting two rows behind me! I didn’t get to talk to him, but it was great fun watching the pilots and the rest of the flight crew fanboy and fangirl over him. (He loved it. And by the way, when the fasten seatbelt light goes on, nobody makes Buzz Aldrin sit down and buckle up.)
I’m a big proponent of tour guides, who can give very personal accounts of what life is like—at least for them—in places I’m visiting. I’ve promised Bjorn, a guide from Iceland, that he’ll be in a future book. Amir, a wonderful guide in Sarajevo, later let me record a Zoom interview with him to share with one of my classes; he spoke about his country’s and his own experiences with ethnic conflict and war. Another amazing guide from another trip to Sarajevo also spoke to me her experiences during the war. During our day-long trip around Bosnia and Serbia she picked plums from a tree for me, and the next day she left a big box of cookies for me at my hotel. In Zagreb, a guide explained what caused the rift in the small local Jewish community (it involved prosciutto) and admitted his part in a Torah theft. He also refused to let me pay for my tour or my daughters’ because we were living in Zagreb that semester and were therefore, he said, locals.
But one of my favorite ways to learn stories is to talk to taxi and Lyft drivers. I’ve met so many interesting people! In New Orleans alone, I chatted with a man from Kazakhstan who told me what it was like to live there when the Soviet Union collapsed; a man from Sarajevo who was delighted that I’d been there and that I loved the place; a woman from New Orleans who had a great story of revenge against her ex-husband; and a man who told us what it was like trying to flee the city with his family during Katrina. (Another driver in New Orleans very nearly severed my sister-in-law’s leg and did hit a parked car, but that’s another story.)
In Seattle I had a ride from an engineering student from India who was confused about the entire concept of Alaska. I explained. In Paris I had a wonderful cab driver from El Salvador—he spoke about as much English as I do French and Spanish, but we managed a trilingual conversation about family and politics. In Zagreb an older cabbie didn’t speak much English, but we managed to get where I needed to go, and he literally applauded and said “Bravo!” at my small attempts at Croatian. He has a lifetime dream to visit New York City. In Lisbon I conversed in my bad French (which is better than my nonexistent Portuguese) with a driver who told us he likes driving Americans and Brits best. A driver in Dubrovnik talked about what it was like living there when the city was under siege during the war.
In Leipzig I met the only person in Germany who didn’t pronounce my very German real last name better than I do; he’s an immigrant from Zimbabwe who was pleased to speak English that day. In Atlanta I had a driver from Ethiopia who told me about the first time he had to work in snow—he gave up and let a customer from New Jersey drive the taxi for him! In New York City a cabbie gave me a discourse on his opinions about then-Mayor Bloomberg (he wasn’t a fan), and in San Francisco a taxi driver let us know exactly what he thinks of Uber and Lyft drivers (also not a fan). In LA a driver told me how she took up driving Lyft to pay her daughter’s college tuition. Meanwhile, a driver in Vegas said he used to drive his daughter across town to college every day and wait for her in a casino, but decided to use the time making some money through Lyft instead. Another driver in Vegas tried to convince we should play bingo at her favorite place, while a cabbie in Louisville offered to detour to Churchill Downs for free because he was disappointed I hadn’t visited there.
Some of these people make their way into my stories. But even when they don’t, I feel like they enrich me so much. Every single person on this planet has fascinating tales. Do you like to learn them too?
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Kim Fielding is the bestselling author of numerous m/m romance novels, novellas, and short stories. Like Kim herself, her work is eclectic, spanning genres such as contemporary, fantasy, paranormal, and historical. Her stories are set in alternate worlds, in 15th century Bosnia, in modern-day Oregon. Her heroes are hipster architect werewolves, housekeepers, maimed giants, and conflicted graduate students. They’re usually flawed, they often encounter terrible obstacles, but they always find love.
After having migrated back and forth across the western two-thirds of the United States, Kim calls the boring part of California home. She lives there with her family and her day job as a university professor, but escapes as often as possible via car, train, plane, or boat. This may explain why her characters often seem to be in transit as well. She dreams of traveling and writing full-time.
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