![]() ![]() I went to Vietnam with no videomaking experience, a tiny home-video (hi8) camera, and no expectations of a career in documentaries. Sure, I may have fantasized from time to time about actually seeing a ten-minute cut of my stuff on local T.V. So I took a course at a university (to get access to the equipment.) One day I looked at my footage and thought, if I can just get ten minutes of my footage on local television, it will help sell the book. And again (between the two of us it was eventually submitted to 72 agents and publishers before it found a home). ![]() I then started to send it out. Again. And again. And again. Eventually I found an agent a 21-year-old intern who had yet to sell her first book. When I got back from Vietnam I put aside my cameras and wrote the manuscript over a period of five months. How did you get your book on Vietnam published? The first thing I ever published was a short story based on the opening chapter of a manuscript (still unpublished) that I had written about my time in the Peace Corps. It appeared in an anthology and I think the payment was three copies of the book. What was your first published piece based on your Peace Corps experience? Two years after that I sold the company and got disengaged. At that point I realized I was at a crossroads, and if I didn't take the plunge and follow my dreams, I was never going to do it. So I packed my bags and headed for Vietnam to become a travel writer. Once I got back from the Philippines I decided to my parents’ enormous joy to join a management consulting firm and I got engaged. I was miserable. Two years later to my parents’ great disappointment I quit that job to start my own company. Also I wanted to have a grand adventure before I settled down to a regular job and family. I still haven’t quite gotten around to the settling-down part.īesides the Peace Corps and before you started writing where did you work and live? To change the world, of course. I remember marching into my village and rolling up my sleeves, thinking we’ll put a school here and a medical clinic over there and would someone please tie up those pigs? I was 21 and righteous. I was in the Philippines from 1987 to 1989, ostensibly as a marine fisheries Volunteer. Unfortunately the fishermen all thought that women were bad luck on boats, so I ended up digging 60 wells, building a school, and trying to launch about 80 other projects, almost all of them monumental flops. I was born in Switzerland (to Swiss parents) and was naturalized at 16. I grew up in the United States, Puerto Rico, and Australia. I went to Williams College and got a degree in of all things economics. So, what you are reading is the result of lots of emails. Karin was all for the interview, but first she had to go on a book tour. Luckily for us, she found our Peace Corps site and she found me, and before she could disappear for another seven months of travel, I suggested an interview. And for a year, she carried a briefcase, wore heels, and had what our parents would call “a real job.” Then she started to travel and write about it as well as make films. Karin scuba dives, sails, and is an instructor in judo (blackbelt) and jujitsu martial arts. She is also a licensed hang glider, paraglider, and ultralight pilot. Karin carries Swiss-American dual citizenship, is fluent in German, Spanish, Tagalog, Illongo, and Japanese. She spent seven months along the Inca Road (Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Chile), and not only wrote about it, she filmed Lost Road of the Inca, a National Geographic adventure-travel documentary series.īefore that, she hitchhiked around Vietnam, another seven-month journey, and produced a 400-page book, as well as a PBS documentary.Īnd most recently, Karin has written and produced Japanland, a four-hour documentary series, and a companion book, published by Rodale Press in October 2005. The problem, of course, is that Karin is always on the go and seldom in the United States.įilmmaker, author, and photographer, Karin Muller has moved far beyond most RPCVs when it comes to living the adventurous life. I had heard about her first book Hitchkiking Vietnam I knew her editor at National Geographic, and even had an email address, but still I couldn’t find Karin. FOR SEVERAL YEARS I have been trying to find Karin Muller. ![]()
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