Spring Break
The frugal travels of a Hopkins alum
Issue date: 2/14/08
He's been to India for high tea, to dinner in Istanbul and has skied the Bulgarian slopes. He also has been to Hopkins.
Matt Gross, the current writer of the New York Times's travel column, "The Frugal Traveler," is a Hopkins alum, having graduated from Hopkins in 1996 and earning his M.F.A. here in 1998.
The News-Letter had a chance to speak to him over the phone about his time here, the Writing Seminars program, the world of journalism, and what it's like to be paid to travel around the world.
News-Letter (N-L): What was the Writing Seminars program like?
Matt Gross (MG): It helped me a lot but I think with many writing programs, you get out of it what you let yourself get out of it. For my whole career, my whole involvement in the writing seminars, I've always been really eager to accept the fact that I don't know as much as others and was willing to learn more. I was always willing to write more. You approach the seminars and workshops with the idea that you can learn a lot to write. You can really learn quite a lot. But obviously other people had more confidence in what they were doing and were not learning as much.
It taught me so much. I can't even read the things that I wrote. I can't believe that I was so na've. I would just be nowhere without John Barth When I was a senior I managed somehow to sneak my way into his final graduate seminar. I was the lone undergrad amid a dozen gad students. I was a total arrogant dick.
N-L: So what is working at the New York Times like?
MG: I just mostly deal with my editors. I don't have a full time job there. There's always a sense that it's the NYT. There's a sort of sense that there is a higher standard to needs to be maintained. At other magazines people could be sort of sloppy, at the Times you always need to have the facts and the reporting to back up anything that you say.
It's not just a lush tour of a fancy place, or some luxurious writing about a luxurious destination. There's got to be actual news value and the reporting done to make these places relevant. The whole thing with travel writing is there is nowhere new. The editor knows every place on earth. Why is it relevant now why should we know about a place? That's a big thing at NYT. When I first started writing at the Times, they actually liked what I wrote.
Matt Gross, the current writer of the New York Times's travel column, "The Frugal Traveler," is a Hopkins alum, having graduated from Hopkins in 1996 and earning his M.F.A. here in 1998.
The News-Letter had a chance to speak to him over the phone about his time here, the Writing Seminars program, the world of journalism, and what it's like to be paid to travel around the world.
News-Letter (N-L): What was the Writing Seminars program like?
Matt Gross (MG): It helped me a lot but I think with many writing programs, you get out of it what you let yourself get out of it. For my whole career, my whole involvement in the writing seminars, I've always been really eager to accept the fact that I don't know as much as others and was willing to learn more. I was always willing to write more. You approach the seminars and workshops with the idea that you can learn a lot to write. You can really learn quite a lot. But obviously other people had more confidence in what they were doing and were not learning as much.
It taught me so much. I can't even read the things that I wrote. I can't believe that I was so na've. I would just be nowhere without John Barth When I was a senior I managed somehow to sneak my way into his final graduate seminar. I was the lone undergrad amid a dozen gad students. I was a total arrogant dick.
N-L: So what is working at the New York Times like?
MG: I just mostly deal with my editors. I don't have a full time job there. There's always a sense that it's the NYT. There's a sort of sense that there is a higher standard to needs to be maintained. At other magazines people could be sort of sloppy, at the Times you always need to have the facts and the reporting to back up anything that you say.
It's not just a lush tour of a fancy place, or some luxurious writing about a luxurious destination. There's got to be actual news value and the reporting done to make these places relevant. The whole thing with travel writing is there is nowhere new. The editor knows every place on earth. Why is it relevant now why should we know about a place? That's a big thing at NYT. When I first started writing at the Times, they actually liked what I wrote.
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