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Jeff Greenwald (born March 6, 1954, in the Bronx, New York) is a best-selling author, photographer, and
monologist A monologist (), or interchangeably monologuist (), is a solo artist who recitation, recites or gives oral interpretation, dramatic readings from a monologue, soliloquy, poetry, or work of literature, for the entertainment of an audience. The te ...
. He now resides in
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.


Biography

On Greenwald's first trip to Asia in 1979, he designed urban playgrounds for
UNICEF UNICEF ( ), originally the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund, officially United Nations Children's Fund since 1953, is an agency of the United Nations responsible for providing Humanitarianism, humanitarian and Development a ...
and the Nepal Children's Organization. Arriving several months later in Thailand during the Khmer civil war, he served as a volunteer water engineer at Khao-I-Dang—-the largest of the Cambodian refugee camps. These early travel experiences shaped his career and philosophy about travel. In the Spring of 1983, Greenwald was awarded a journalism fellowship by the Rotary International Foundation, and departed for a second trip to Asia. Over the course of 16 months he lived in Kathmandu, Nepal, and made excursions to the Himalaya, India, Sri Lanka, Hong Kong, Japan, Java, and Bali. His articles about those trips appeared in the magazines ''GEO'' and ''Islands''. It was around this time that he began writing "Mr. Raja¹s Neighborhood: Letters from Nepal." Four years later, his travels in Nepal and Tibet would inspire "Shopping for Buddhas," first published by
Harper and Row Harper is an American publishing house, the flagship imprint of global publisher HarperCollins, based in New York City. Founded in New York in 1817 by James Harper and his brother John, the company operated as J. & J. Harper until 1833, when ...
in 1990. A later edition, published in the Lonely Planet "Journeys" series, won the Lowell Thomas Gold Award for Best Travel Book of 1996. A 25th Anniversary edition, which includes Nepal's political upheavals since 1995, was added. As he circled the globe writing ''The Size of the World'' in 1993-1994, Greenwald posted a series of real-time dispatches to GNN, the
Global Network Navigator The Global Network Navigator (GNN) was the first commercial web publication and the first web site to offer clickable advertisements. It was designed by Jennifer N. Robbins. GNN was launched in May 1993, as a project of the technical publishing c ...
, describing his journey. The first was posted on January 6, 1994, from Oaxaca, Mexico. Nineteen more followed. Consequently, Greenwald is hailed as an internet pioneer for creating the first international travel "blog" (five years. before the term was coined) on the World Wide Web. In 2003, Greenwald co-founded the organization ''Ethical Traveler'', of which he serves as the Executive Director. A project of the
Earth Island Institute The Earth Island Institute is a non-profit environmental group founded in 1982 by David Brower. Located in Berkeley, California, it supports activism around environmental issues through fiscal sponsorship that provides the administrative and or ...
, Ethical Traveler is a global community dedicated to exploring the ambassadorial potential of world travel, as outlined in Greenwald's "Thirteen Tips for the Accidental Ambassador." Using his many travel adventures as material, Greenwald developed a one-man show in 2003 called "Strange Travel Suggestions." The show, which premiered at
The Marsh The Marsh Theater is an American theater company that specializes in developing new performance, founded in 1989. It has two venue locations, at 1062 Valencia Street in the Mission District of San Francisco, California; and 2120 Allston Way in Be ...
in
San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...
to critical acclaim, is an improvised monologue. Each performance's stories and arc is determined by an audience volunteer's spin of an on-stage "wheel of fortune". A more recent show, "108 Beloved Objects," based on Greenwald's 2021 book of the same name, premiered in San Leandro in September 2022 as part of Brian Copeland's "Best of SF Solo" performance series. Thanks to a casting director who was a fan of his writing, Greenwald made a cameo appearance as Security Guard on the "Jail" episode of the NBC sitcom ''
NewsRadio ''NewsRadio'' is an American television sitcom that aired on NBC from March 21, 1995, to May 4, 1999, focusing on the work lives of the staff of a New York City AM news radio station. It had an ensemble cast featuring Dave Foley, Stephen R ...
''. In 2021, Greenwald was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease. In May of 2024—hearkening back to his groundbreaking travel "blogs" of 1994—he began a series of Substack posts
"Jeffji's Big World"
relating his adventures in everyday life—from a cruise along the Maine coast to Burning Man—to his "journey" with Parkinson's.


Bibliography

*''Mr. Raja's Neighborhood: Letters from Nepal'' (1986, John Daniel Publications) *''Shopping for Buddhas'' (1990, Harper & Row; 1996, Lonely Planet; 2014, Travelers' Tales) *''The Size of the World'' (1996, Globe Pequot; March 1997, Ballantine Books) *''Future Perfect: How Star Trek Conquered Planet Earth'' (1998, Viking; 1999, Penguin; 2016, Kindle) *''Scratching the Surface: Impressions of Planet Earth from Hollywood to Shiraz'' (2002, Naga Press) *''Snake Lake'' (2010, Counterpoint Press) *
Out of Nothing: Conversations with Larry Harvey
' (2019, Black Rock Philosophical Center) *''The Nine Gifts: A First Aid Kit for Mind, Body and Spirit'' (2020, with Christine Marie Mason) *''108 Beloved Objects: Letting Go of Stuff, Keeping Our Stories'' (2021, self-published) *Greenwald has written stories and essays for such publications as ''The New York Times Magazine'', ''Wired'', ''National Geographic Adventure,'' ''Outside,'' ''New Scientist'', and ''Craftsmanship''. His travel writing appears in numerous anthologies, such as ''The Kindness of Strangers'', ''In Search of Adventure'', ''Salon Wanderlust'', and in many volumes of the award-winning ''Travelers Tales'' series.


Quotes

*"For anyone with an appetite for fantastic legends, a thirst for color (especially red), and a general craving for utter theological wonder, Nepal is a case study in all-you-can-eat." *"We go where we need to go, then try to figure out what we're doing there." *"Every time I set off on a journey, I feel like God has thrown me the keys to her car."


External links


jeffgreenwald.substack.com

www.108Objects.com

www.ethicaltraveler.org

www.jeffgreenwald.com


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Greenwald, Jeff Living people American travel writers American male non-fiction writers 1954 births Photographers from the Bronx