Chaney Kwak

Chaney Kwak once contemplated death while aboard a cruise ship hit by cyclone in the Arctic Sea. He recounts his experience in his book “The Passenger: How a Travel Writer Learned to Love Cruises & Other Lies from a Sinking Ship,” while weaving in other events spanning decades and continents. Chaney spent six years in Berlin before relocating to San Francisco, sneaking into decommissioned Soviet military bases, the former Iraqi embassy, and an abandoned East German amusement park. He wrote about this park for The New York Times in an article that quickly launched him into a professional role in travel writing. Since then, Chaney’s work has been featured in The Guardian, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, National Geographic Traveler, Travel + Leisure, and Condé Nast Traveler. He’s received the Key West Literary Seminar Emerging Writer Award and scholarships from literary institutions like the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. Since his harrowing experience at sea, Chaney can be found teaching nonfiction writing at the Stanford Continuing Studies program, or at his home in San Francisco tending bees and writing books.

• Author of the book “The Passenger: How a Travel Writer Learned to Love Cruises & Other Lies from a Sinking Ship”
• Received the Key West Literary Seminar Emerging Writer Award and a scholarship from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference
• Teaches nonfiction writing at the Stanford Continuing Studies program