Stef:

I kept detailed journals from all of the places I visited, and I’d wanted to write a travel memoir for a long time. I actually did complete one, but it was terrible.

James and I were driving to visit my parents in Pittsburgh one summer, and I mentioned to him that I was just going to give up on it.

James:

Stef said she didn’t think there was anything special about her story, and I felt bad hearing her talk about giving up since I knew it was something she’d been working on for a long time.

I suggested we write a book of short travel stories together.

Stef:

I have anxiety, and the idea of the general public knowing my name freaks me out.

And my mom has anxiety, worse than me, and if our whole family knew all of those stories about me—I mean, a few are pretty bad—she might be the first person to literally die of embarrassment

James:

Same goes for me. There’s definitely some stories my mum would be embarrassed about.

Also, even though it’s been almost 20 years since my debt issues, I still feel bad about myself and ashamed to share those issues with the world.

Stef:

Even our writing teacher was like, "yeah, I think my wife and I would kill each other if we tried that."

Yeah, at first we weren’t on the same page about our goals for the project. But James always knew that I wanted to sell my book, so I just assumed he knew I’d want to sell this one, too.

So we did have many long discussions about what to include. By discussions, I mean me trying to convince him to write about stuff he didn’t want to, because I knew it would be better for the story.

James:

We get that question a lot when we tell people we wrote a book together.

For me, I never imagined we would publish the book. I thought it would be a great shared experience to write together and document our travels, and it was. Now, don’t get me wrong, there were many creative differences along the way but overall it was very rewarding.

Although once we decided this thing could be a published book that others would read, it made the writing tougher for me and I definitely held up proceedings.

Stef:

I read a lot of non-fiction. I’m really curious, and there are always things I want to learn about. Some of my recent favorites were Metropolis, 1491, and The Inconvenient Indian.

Bill Bryson is my favorite author. I love his memoirs, obviously, but I also enjoy his other non-fiction books. He can make literally anything funny.

James:

I’m actually not a huge reader. Although I did listen to a lot of audiobooks when I had a long commute to work.

I gravitate towards memoirs. Kevin Hart and Trevor Noah are my favorites.