AWOL

Jennifer Barclay was born in 1968 and grew up with one younger brother in a village on the edge of Saddleworth Moor in the north of England. The family travelled to Europe every summer in search of sunshine. Her father is a football journalist while her mother has worked variously in catering, care for handicapped kids, and as information officer for an automobile company.

After graduating from Oxford University with a degree in English, and gaining some journalism experience with The Independent and student magazines like the Oxford Author, she ended up teaching English in Greece. Following a roller-coaster year and a summer job in a hotel overlooking a volcano, she had caught the travel bug and saved up to follow…

Born in 1972, Amy Logan says it was excellent growing up in Bowmanville, Ontario, where her “family is loving, incredible friends were abundant, the schools encouraged creativity, and summer jobs like strawberry-picking and working at the local marina made life even more interesting.” She moved to Montreal in 1990 to attend McGill University, and her original plan was a B.A. majoring in political science, followed by law school. She enjoyed university and completed the degree, but once the LSAT time came around, law was no longer of interest.

She soon found herself on a plane to Japan, where she lived for eighteen months on the island of Shikoku: a palm- and orange-treed place largely known to the Japanese as “the sticks.”…