The Backpack Years

"Its journey through alcohol, angst, love, and learning carries readers, via a streetwise voice and experiences, far from the beaten path of tired travelogues." -D. Donovan, Senior Reviewer, Midwest Book Review

Stef: Okay, we need to work on the blurb. What is our book about?

James: I don’t know anymore. I just wanted to write funny stories about traveling back when we were cool. But you told me to write about me debt and me f***ing dad, too.

Stef: You definitely can’t say f*** in a blurb. And your chapters are better with the whole story. It’s not like mine are all happy fun times, there’s also a bunch of terrible life decisions.

James: Am I one of them?

Stef: No comment.

James: Cheeky sod. So, what do we write? Something corny about how it’s a dual-narrative memoir by a married couple, written in a novel-like style?

Stef: Ooh, that’s not bad, actually. And it’s about two adventurous, incident-prone young adults in the early 2000s who ran from their mistakes and ended up on a transcontinental journey of bad choices spanning six years and thirteen countries. But like, there’s funny stuff, too.

James: I guess that sounds about right.

Stef: How can we say that it's achingly candid, real, and fun without sounding cheesy?

James: I don’t think there is a way, love.

Stef: I like it anyway.

James: Sorted, we’ll go with that.