Welcome to The Raconteur
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a Raconteur is “a narrator of an anecdote or story, especially a person particularly skilled in this role.”
Here at The Raconteur, you'll find thoughtful, hand-crafted prose, stunning photos, and insights into people, places, and cultures, mostly off the beaten path.
Join me as I travel far and near, examining how the meld of history, geography and nature affects modern people and cultures.
As a subscriber, I invite you to hop aboard a mule as we traverse a cliff-clinging trail into a remote 3,000-foot-deep arroyo in Baja California, Mexico, to view some of the most spectacular cave paintings on the planet. My piece The Time of the Painters was the first to report that these UNESCO World Heritage murals were vastly more ancient than once believed.
Sit with me alone at dawn in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, in the Gur-e-Amir, the dazzling final resting place of Timur the Conqueror, where we contemplate what it means to gaze at the splendor that venerates a man whose armies conquered much of the known world and slaughtered some 17 million fellow humans. Delve with me, if you dare, into The Curse of Timur, which, as it turns out, is partly truth, but mostly fiction.
Join me to meditate in silence and solitude at midnight at 10,000 feet elevation in the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest of Eastern California, as a brilliant Milky Way rises over 4,000-year-old trees that are the oldest living things on the planet.
Come with me at 4:30 a.m. atop the Cliffs of Bonifacio, Corsica, the white limestone escarpment illuminated as though it were midday, to witness a stunning Blue Sturgeon Supermoon (yes, that’s what astronomers dubbed it) setting above the Mediterranean.
What you won’t find at The Raconteur are soulless listicles and mindless ditties that have so polluted the genre of travel writing in recent years.
Instead, as a dedicated Raconteur, I work hard to connect the dots between the past and present, and between your culture and theirs, all the while examining differences and discovering common ground.
Craig K. Collins Bio
A native of Pocatello, Idaho, Collins attended college in San Diego, where he has lived since. He holds a BA in English and an MBA from San Diego State University. After a stint as a journalist, he served as a senior executive for a Fortune 500 company and later founded a series of venture-backed technology start-ups. Today he focuses primarily on his first loves of writing, photography, and travel. He is most interested in exploring places far off the beaten path and writing about how the meld of history, geography and nature affects modern people and cultures. Collins is the author of two books of literary nonfiction — Thunder in the Mountains and Midair — and is currently writing a novel set in Silicon Valley, as well as a work of historical non-fiction about one of the great merchant travelers of the Silk Road.
Photo Gallery
As an award-winning photographer, I bring to my readers beautiful, integrated images that illustrate and punctuate my articles. These photos are taken during travels with the goal of providing readers with deeper insight into my words and themes. As a subscriber, you’ll receive a Photo of the Week that comes with a detailed description of how, when and why a particular photo was taken.
Selected Works:
Hidden Compass
Medium.com
The Breadmen of Uzbekistan: Give us this day our daily bread … (and coffee, too)
The Buddhist in Me: I hear the ancient Bristlecone Pines whisper: “All Things Must Pass”
In All the Seasons That Will Ever Be: Chasing the ghost of Ernest Hemingway in Ketchum, Idaho
Lyons Press
Midair: An Epic Tale of Survival and a Mission That Might Have Ended the Vietnam War
Thunder in the Mountains: A Portrait of American Gun Culture
Video/Audio
Behind the Byline with Craig K. Collins: The Time of the Painters
Behind the Byline with Craig K. Collins: The Curse of Timur
Midair: Fox 5 Morning News San Diego
Capital Public Radio, Sacramento, The Story Of A B-52 Collision In Midair
Social Media
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