Michael Shapiro

Michael Shapiro is the author of the new book, "The Creative Spark: How Musicians, Writers, Explorers, and Other Artists Found Their Inner Fire and Followed Their Dreams," published in autumn, 2019. The book is a collection of interviews and biographical sketches that serve as an inspiration for creative endeavors. Among those whom Shapiro interviewed: Smokey Robinson, Lucinda Williams, Francis Ford Coppola, Pico Iyer, Jane Goodall, Amy Tan, David Sedaris, and Barbara Kingsolver.

A freelance journalist, Shapiro’s features have appeared in the Washington Post, New York Times, Chicago Tribune, and Los Angeles Times. He’s written for the following newspaper sections: travel, news, sports, entertainment, business, real estate, home and garden, books, and the Sunday magazine. From 2011 to 2018, Shapiro wrote the San Francisco Chronicle’s weekly gambling column.

Among his travel assignments: Shapiro has bicycled down Mongolia’s unmarked dirt roads for the Washington Post, tasted tequila in Jalisco for American Way, played baseball for a week at the San Francisco Giants fantasy camp for Lexus magazine, and tracked pumas in Chile’s Patagonia region on a photo safari for a custom lifestyle publication. He’s written for magazines including the Saturday Evening Post, The Sun, AFAR, Virtuoso Traveler and Alaska Beyond. He’s even profiled Jane Goodall for O the Oprah magazine.

Shapiro’s National Geographic Traveler cover story, about Jan Morris’ corner of Wales, won the 2007 Bedford Pace grand award for best feature about Great Britain; the prize was a week in the U.K. His article about sustainable seafood in Vancouver earned the 2016 Explore Canada Award of Excellence. He’s won the Lowell Thomas award from the Society of American Travel Writers, the Solas award for travel essays, and is a four-time winner of Travel Classics’ top prize.

Shapiro’s first literary book, A Sense of Place, is a collection of interviews with the world’s leading travel authors including Bill Bryson, Jan Morris, Peter Matthiessen, and Paul Theroux. In 2008, he wrote the text for Kraig Lieb photography’s book, Guatemala: A Journey Through the Land of the Maya. In 1997, Shapiro published NetTravel: How Travelers Use the Internet, an early guide to online travel planning.

He co-directed and produced the 2017 documentary film, Junkyard Alchemist, about Sebastopol artists Patrick Amiot and Brigitte Laurent, who turn junk into art. The film earned Best of the Fest recognition in the short film category at the Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival. That same year, Shapiro delivered a Sonoma County TEDx talk entitled “The Space Between” about how travel fosters understanding and can encourage people to build bridges rather than walls.

Shapiro lives with his wife, Jacqueline Yau, in Sonoma County, California, just north of San Francisco. He volunteers as a whitewater raft guide and sea kayak trip leader for Environmental Traveling Companions, a Northern California outfitter that takes special needs groups on outdoor adventures. In 2016, he co-led a 16-day raft trip down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon, somehow rowing his wife without incident through the harrowing rapids of Lava Falls. He enjoys bicycling along the backroads of Sonoma County, playing friendly poker games, listening to live music, and attending San Francisco Giants games.