Colorado Author Wins NATJA 'Best Book of 2002 with 'Oddventure Stories

Second travel writing award for Colorado author this year

BASALT, Colo.- The Shoes of Kilimanjaro & Other Oddventure Travel Stories by Colorado-based author Cam Burns has shared the "Best Travel Book" award of 2002 in the North American Travel Journalists Associations annual competition. The competition included books by writers from across the country and around the world. Burnss book shared Best Book with a book by Jacqueline Harmon Butler, but beat entries from the best-selling "Chicken Soup" series (Chicken Soup for the Travelers Soul, by Steve Zikman), and the Landmark Visitors Guide Series (St. Lu-cia, by Don Philpott).

The NATJA award is the second travel writing award for Burns in 2002. In September he won a prize in the "Best of Blue," a collection of stories from the first five years of the New York-based travel magazine. Burns won Best of Blues "Best Back Page" for a condensed version of his es-say, "The Shoes of Kilimanjaro." That story later became the lead essay in the book The Shoes of Kilimanjaro & Other Oddventure Travel Stories.

The North American Travel Journalists Association is an about 350-member organization based in El Segundo, Calif. The organization is dedicated to professional development, support high quality professional journalism, and to promote travel and leisure activities to the public.

The Shoes of Kilimanjaro & Other Oddventure Travel Stories was released in summer 2002 by Colorado-based Hard-Pressed Books. A collection of 13 of Burnss most popular travel essays, The Shoes of Kilimanjaro & Other Oddventure Travel Stories includes humorous stories about ad-venture travel in Africa, Asia, North and South America, Australia, Great Britain, and the Carib-bean. Each essay offers Burnss unique, often weird, views about the earth, society, and human achievement (of lack thereof).

In the introduction, Burns explains his thesis that adventure travel can mean any kind of travel, as long as it challenges the traveler: "There are two definitions that most of us from the latter 20th century/early 21st century agree upon when it comes to adventure. The first is that we generally think of adventure as having to be outdoors, preferably in a wilderness setting. The other thing about adventure is that we generally associate it with an activity that can be life-threatening, where someone has the potential to be seriously injured or die. Websters New World Dictionary of the American Language [1962 edition] defines it in about five different ways, most of which center around taking risks, i.e. "1. the encountering of danger," and "2. an exciting and dangerous un-dertaking, etc. " Adventure can be much more subtle. Adventure, I believe, should focus more on Websters third definition: "an unusual, stirring experience, often of romantic nature."

"Really, this collection is a pretty simple set of essays about places and situations, but itll make readers think and hopefully appreciate all of life, really, as an adventure," said Burns.

Australian born Cameron M. Burns, is a Colorado-based writer, photographer, designer and communications specialist. As a writer, he authored or co-authored five climbing guidebooks, in-cluding Kilimanjaro & Mt. Kenya, Colorado Ice Climber's Guide, California's Fourteeners: A Hiking & Climbing Guide, Climbing California's Fourteeners, and Selected Climbs of the Desert Southwest. His essays have appeared in the books: World Mountaineering (UK), Ascent, The Walker Within, I Really Should Have Stayed Home, I Should Have Just Stayed Home and The Best of Rock & Ice, as well as many other books and journals. As a photojournalist, Burns has been a staff correspondent/contributing editor for several dozen publications and has won seven awards for his writing and three for his photography. Much of his work has focused on environ-mental issues or outdoor activities, but he has also written hundreds of articles about politics, art, music, travel, and literature. He has shot assignments for The (London) Times, Newsweek and GQ Magazine, among others.

Title: The Shoes of Kilimanjaro & Other Oddventure Travel Stories; Author: Cameron M. Burns; $16.95; ISBN No.: 0-9629627-1-6 (bar code on back); Pages: 184; Perfect bound; Carton Quan-tity: 60 books.

The book is distributed by Alpenbooks in the United States and Cordee in the U.K.