June 2021 Notable Author: Judy Colbert

“I love it when someone reads something I wrote and says, "I didn't know that.”– Judy Colbert

Judy Colbert is an award-winning author and photographer who specializes in travel and the hospitality business.  She was born in 1941 in Washington, DC, attended Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, and graduatd from Ohio University.  Judy started writing in the fifth grade.

Judy is a naturally curious person and has always been fascinated by DELMARVA history and its people. She realized if she found something fascinating, it was usually fascinating to the people she knew.  The out-of-the-way history she uncovered and rediscovered during off-beat travel was intensely satisfying to her curious nature and she wrote about it so she could share it with others. Then a writer from St. Louis told her of a publisher who would like her type of writing.  In 1985, she published her first book, Virginia Off the Beaten Path.  Her first award was Maryland Travel Writer of the Year in 1989.  She has continued with books like, 100 Things To Do in Baltimore Before You Die, Peaceful Places in Washington, and It Happened in Maryland.  A natural spin-off of off-beat travel is the recipes you discover.  This resulted in  Chesapeake Bay Crabs, a cookbook which contains 123 recipes (including a crab creme brulee dessert) as well as lots of photos and stories about crabs and Chesapeake people and history.

Thirty-six books and hundreds of articles later, Judy will tell you she is primarily a travel writer.  She’ll also laugh and tell you that her articles rarely appear in travel sections or publications. Her articles might be about hotels that provide child-proofing services or where you can buy that wonderfully comfortable pillow from your favorite hotel. She’s also written about Super Bowl trivia, divorce, temper tantrums, and grocery shopping cart design trends. So far, she has not written about mud wrestling. Her off-beat travel articles, as well as other topics, regularly appear in Southern Maryland: This Is Living Magazine, Northern Virginia magazine, NextAvenue.org and Bay Weekly and Chesapeake Bay magazine. She’s also written for TheBucket.com, SmarterTravel.com, Washingtonian, and countless other print and online publications, including the former inflight magazine for WOW Airlines.

Judy no longer has to uncover every off-beat place or item on her own.  A vast army of friends and associates regularly send her leads on interesting places or historical events that have been lost to time. 

Judy lives in Crofton, MD and enjoys time with her two grown daughters and three grown grandchildren.

Genre: Travel Writing

Writers in this genre look for and report on places and events that are remarkably interesting, but have been forgotten by time, are out-of-the-way, or now hidden from view.  Their writing helps to keep places or events alive in their culture.

Sample Reading List: Virginia Off the Beaten Path, 100 Things To Do in Baltimore Before You Die, Peaceful Places in Washington, Chesapeake Bay Crabs (cookbook), A History of the Capital Hilton, It Happened in Maryland.

Writer's Prompt - Fun With Words

Maryland Writers’ Association (MWA) invites you to have fun being an off-beat travel writer like Judy. With just 100 words, pick an off-beat place you know of and write a piece that will make people curious enough to visit it.

Submit your Fun With Words response to: https://marylandwriters.org/Notable_Maryland_Authors  by the 22nd of the month and receive an MWA Fun With Words submission certificate. Selected responses will be published with next month’s article.

Submit Your FUN WITH WORDS Prompt

The MWA is a 33-year-old state-wide association (501c3) dedicated to encouraging and mentoring Maryland writers, poets, playwrights, and authors.  Go to:  www.MarylandWriters.org for more info.