This image is the result of a free-writing exercise my wife Kiki led near the Louvre, during the 2022 Paris Writing Workshops. Kiki is a classically trained actress, and she drew on her stage skills to create an exercise where students lingered near the Louvre, attempting to describe people in their journals without using adjectives, and listening for snippets of found-conversation.

Hence, my writing students were all hanging out near the Louvre when — quite unexpectedly — the celebrity couple known as “Bennifer” walked out of the museum. Photo credit here goes to 2022 Travel Memoir student David Hunter Bishop, who spotted the pair only because the tourists he was trying to journal about kept rubbernecking at them. The arrow indicates writing student Adrielle Knight, whose own journal prompt was interrupted when Bennifer walked by.


Note: “Dispatches” are short vignettes, profiles, and mini-essays written and posted from the road, often in tandem with my Instagram account. I don’t host a “comments” section, but I’m happy to hear your thoughts via my Contact page.