Adventure Divas - by Holly Morris (Paperback)

About the Book

"Travel temptress Holly Morris" ("The Orange County Register") travels to the corners of the earth to document the stories of extraordinary women--politicos, artists, activists--whose lives have transformed the world around them.

Book Synopsis

After years of working behind a desk, Holly Morris had finally had enough. So she quit her job and set out to prove that adventure is not just a vacation style but a philosophy of living and to find like-minded, risk-taking women around the globe. With modest backing, a small television crew, her spirited producer-mother, Jeannie, and a whole lot of chutzpah, Morris tracked down artists, activists, and politicos-women of action who are changing the rules and sometimes the world around them.

In these pages, Morris brings to life the remarkable people and places she's encountered on the road while filming her PBS series Adventure Divas and other programs. We meet Assata Shakur, a former Black Panther and social activist and now a fugitive living in exile in Cuba; Kiran Bedi, New Delhi's chief of police, who revolutionized India's infamously brutal Tijar Jail with her humanitarian ethic; New Zealand pop star Hinewehi Mohi, a Maori who reinvigorates her native culture for a new generation; and Mokarrameh Ghanbari, a septuagenarian painter and rice farmer who lives in the tiny village of Darikandeh on the Caspian plains of Iran, where her creative talents run counter to the government's strict stance on art.

Along the way, Morris herself becomes a certified Adventure Diva, as she hunts for wild boar with Penan tribesmen in the jungles of Borneo, climbs the Matterhorn short-roped to a salty fourth-generation Swiss guide, and memorably becomes the first woman ever to enter the traditional camel race of the Saharan oasis town of Timia.

Intelligent, phenomenally funny, and chock-full of rich and telling details of place, Adventure Divas is a pro-woman chronicle for the twenty-first century. In a pilgrimage fueled by curiosity, ideology, and full-on estrogen power, Holly Morris has paved the way for all of us to discover our own diva within and set out on our own adventures.

Review Quotes

"A delightful triangulation of adventure travel, telecommuting and self-reinvention...[Morris] can be hilarious....[Her] self-deprecating wit, sense of pacing and brainy insights into the nature of fear and self-reliance hold the book together....When Morris becomes her own subject, the result is always vibrant honesty....[she] is not afraid to show her everyday self on the page, which is invigorating in a genre that too often has only two speeds: turbo self-aggrandizement and ambling naturalist instrospection. The female perspective is also refreshing: how many men could survive not one but two international waxing appointments-Brazilian and Persian?"
-The New York Times Book Review

"Writing with compassion, humor, and activism, Morris empowers women to follow their dreams by showing that determined women can indeed effect change in their lives. Highly recommended."
-Library Journal

"Morris shows an admirable fearlessness... genuinely interesting subject matter."
-Kirkus Reviews

"This is not just about travel, although it's as adventurous as can be....Morris' interviews...are thoughtful and probing...[and] her text adds context-and humor-to the project, warts and all."
-Booklist

"Smart, sexy, inspiring! Holly Morris is the ultimate adventure diva. Whether she's deconstructing Cuban politics, finding meaning in a Brazilian bikini wax, or succumbing to the pleasures of a Tehran security pat down, Holly lives and writes like a brainy bad girl. I loved reading Adventure Divas is like riding shotgun on a high-octane global road trip."
-Cameron Tuttle, author of The Bad Girl's Guide to the Open Road

"Let us celebrate Holly Morris and all of the other amazing, hilarious, tough, and tender Adventure Divas in this book. There is no substitute for the old-fashioned adventurer with frequent flier miles, dirt on her boots, and new ideas."
-Sherman Alexie, author of The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven

"Beware. If you read this remarkable book you will pack your bags and go. And you will want to take Holly Morris with you as your friend and guide-she notices everything and she's wickedly funny."
-Susan Fox Rogers, editor of Solo: On Her Own Adventure

"Holly Morris is hip, wise, concerned, endlessly curious, fearless, and fiercely independent-and her richly textured account of her adventures is filled with more fun and excitement than The Perils of Pauline."
-Nick Lyons, author of Full Creel

"The Adventure Divas really do go where angels fear to tread. Meet the 81-year-old Cuban poet and her 41-year-old husband; the rebellious spirit behind Iran's foremost women's magazine; a female Maori band-leader. Holly Morris has written a lively and fascinating old-girl's-guide paean to never holding back on life. What woman-or man-can ask for more? Move over, Mr. Hemingway."
-Jacki Lyden, National Public Radio

"Holly Morris has given us a fresh and individualistic take on the American tradition of lighting out for the territory."
-Howell Raines, author of Fly Fishing Through the Midlife Crisis

"Find your passport to excitement, enlightenment, intelligence and ingenuity in Holly Morris's spirited exploration of the global sisterhood. Adventure Divas is what the world needs now!"
-Evelyn C. White, author of Alice Walker: A Life

"Adventure Divas will inspire you to set out on your own journey. Holly Morris is a delightful and trustworthy guide through many exotic countries, friendships, and even the world of television production. Still, Adventure Divas greatest contribution is the female treasures-the obscure, ordinary, and fabulous-Morris unearths around the world."
-Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards, co-authors Grassroots: A Field Guide to Feminist Activism and Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism and the Future

"Adventure Divas is an internal journey as much as a movement through a foreign landscape-a personal odyssey through uncharted territory. Holly Morris encounters dragons, real and imagined, within and without, finds shelters among strangers, and falters, then moves on. In the end she returns with new knowledge-of herself, the world, the act of journeying itself-to share in this terrific book with those who stayed behind."
-Karin Muller, author of Along the Inca Road: A Woman's Journey into an Ancient Empire

"Part travel narrative, part cultural and political analysis, with a scathingly hilarious mother-daughter memoir deftly worked into the mix, Adventure Divas is a deeply satisfying read."
-Inga Muscio, author of Autobiography of a Blue-Eyed Devil

"[Morris is] a winning companion, a keen cultural observer, a free but not
falsely upbeat spirit."
-Chicago Tribune

"Smart. Funny. Sarcastic. Creative. Gutsy. Morris...is all of the above."
-Seattle Post Intelligencer

"An unusual mix of activism and entertainment bringing the comlexity and struggle of women's lives into focus."
-Sojourner

"Only a few women warriors have successfully stormed prime time. There's Xena. And the Femme Nikita. Now travel temptress Holly Morris is giving it a try."
-Orange County Register

"The Adventure Divas have some advice for firing up your soul!"
-USA Today

About the Author

Holly Morris is the founder of Adventure Divas, Inc., a multimedia production company, and is executive producer and writer/director of the award-winning prime-time PBS documentary series Adventure Divas. She is the former editorial director of Seal Press and the editor of two fishing anthologies, A Different Angle and Uncommon Waters. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, Ms., Outside, and numerous anthologies and on abcnews.com. When she's not writing or producing television documentaries, Morris is a correspondent for television series such as Lonely Planet Treks in America, Treks in a Wild World, Globe Trekkers, and Outdoor Investigations.