Guest Post By Krista D. Ball

Not everyone has the desire to travel the world. Not everyone has the means, either. Yet, I think a little exploration can do our minds good. If we spend too much time in the same place, we become entrenched and our world view becomes stilted.

As a speculative fiction writer, the imagination needs constant stimulation in order to keep up with creating new worlds, cultures, and even races. Visiting new places, even as simple as a new ethnic restaurant or a small town gift shop, expands my world just a tiny bit more.

I confess that I’ve never had a burning desire to see the world. I trust the internet when it says that there are pyramids in Egypt and that there are leaning towers in Pisa. However, I have travelled in small ways and have seen many things crop up in my writing.

I’ve been along the coast of Labrador and saw firsthand what cultural genocide, corruption, and alcoholism can do to a proud people. I’ve been to outport Newfoundland where I saw people cling to their culture in the midst of economic upheaval. And I’ve seen the Rocky Mountains and myself an early explorer.

As humans, we need to continue expanding our minds or else we risk mental atrophy. Regardless if it is grand or small, travel is one of the important ways that we continue to explore the world around us. And, in doing so, we explore our own lives.

Krista D. Ball is a speculative fiction writer in Edmonton, Alberta. Her upcoming novelette, Harvest Moon, travels back in time to visit a fictional First Nations tribe in northern Alberta.