I'm Michael Jensen, a travel writer, amateur photographer, and recovering novelist.
And I've always loved to travel.
I’m an American, but in my early twenties, I moved to Australia, working at the Brisbane World’s Fair for a summer and also backpacking around the rest of the country and neighboring New Zealand. I almost died a couple of times doing some dumb stuff, and while hitchhiking, I think a serial killer might have picked me up.
When I returned to America, I got a job at Alaska Airlines, which allowed me to see the Northern Lights from the cockpit of an airplane, visit Adak Island, at the very end of the remote Aleutian Islands, and spend time in shockingly cold temperatures above the Arctic Circle. I even had time to hike some truly beautiful areas of Alaska.
I also traveled a lot with my husband, writer Brent Hartinger, as much as we could afford.
But we always wanted more — to maybe even move overseas one day.
In 2017, in part because of Donald Trump’s election, we sold our house, got rid of most of our possessions, moved our lives into the cloud, and became digital nomads.
Since then, we’ve lived in more than thirty countries for at least a month. We’ve also written about our adventures in another newsletter, Brent and Michael Are Going Places.
But this newsletter, Michael Takes Too Many Pictures, is just my baby — a place to showcase the places and stories that never made it into Brent and Michael Are Going Places.
And especially all the photographs I take.
By the way, I’m also an author. My books of gay historical fiction include The Savage Land series, which takes place on the American frontier. The first book in the series is Man & Beast, and the second book, Man & Monster, was a Lambda Award Finalist (under the title Firelands).
I'm also the co-founder of AfterElton.com, which covered pop culture for gay and bisexual men, and eventually became one of the largest and most influential LGBT websites on the internet. In 2006, AfterElton.com was sold to MTV/Viacom in a multimillion dollar deal. As editor until 2010, I interviewed hundreds of writers, directors, and actors, breaking numerous stories and advancing the issue of LGBT visibility in Hollywood.
This newsletter will sometimes feature updates on my writing career, but it’s mostly about my travels — and my photographs.
I’ll hope you’ll join me by subscribing here:
You can also contact me via email, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or you can connect with me through Goodreads.
Caoi for now!
Michael
P.S. This website and newsletter are free, but you can support me and my writing with a one-time donation of any amount here:
