Indiana University School of Journalism

Photo by Tim Street

Graduate student Joice Biazoto (left) and senior Erica Ballard will blog from Manchester, England, where they are attending the SATW convention.

Two School of Journalism students will travel to Manchester, England, this week for the Society of American Travel Writers annual convention, where they will have the chance to meet veteran travel journalists, learn about the trade and take several day trips as material for their own stories.

Senior Erica Ballard and master’s student Joice Biazoto depart Thursday for the five-day event. They will blog about the trip for the School of Journalism Web site.

“This will be a great opportunity to make connections and learn about freelancing,” Ballard said. “And I’ve always had a small dream of living in England.”

The two were chosen by the school after SATW president Laurie Borman, B.A. ’78, invited her alma mater to send two students to the conference. Borman called it a trial run for bringing younger writers into the professional organization.

“To get into this kind of business generally takes some time,” she said from her office at Rand McNally in Chicago, where she is editorial director. “As a result, a large portion of our attendees are older. We felt we should be doing more to encourage younger attendees.”

She hopes the two will learn about the changing business of travel writing, which increasingly demands that journalists specialize either in a geographic area or in a type of travel, such as food, family or adventure travel, she said.

To help them navigate the convention, she has paired Ballard and Biazoto with mentors — travel section editors from the Chicago Tribune and Philadelphia Inquirer. Borman said she hopes the students gain an understanding of the demands of travel journalism.

“It’s not just mai tais on the beach,” she said.

The convention does include, though, an opening gala with Princess Anne, trips to seaside towns and a music festival and dinners at some of the restaurants Manchester hopes to promote.

Biazoto, who plans to move to Heidelberg, Germany, after graduating in December, said meeting accomplished travel writers might be the convention’s biggest attraction for her.

“I don’t want to do tourism writing,” she said. “But I want to do travel writing with a purpose, with a connection to social justice or environmental issues. I’ve always been really inspired by that kind of work.

“I’ve loved National Geographic since I was a kid. I want to write stories that need to be told, stories that challenge people’s worldviews, but also show them how much they have in common with everybody else.”

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