The assistant professor in the School of Communications examined the Southeast Asian nation’s rise from the ground level, spending two-plus weeks exploring what has quickly become one of the world’s most enticing tourist destinations.
To deliver his narrative focusing on the Southeast Asian country, Bockino detoured from the typical publishing methods—e.g., magazine articles and books—and partnered with Kindle Singles, an editor-curated platform he called “author-friendly.”
Following his first year at Elon University, where he teaches communications and sport and event management courses, Bockino spent two and a half weeks in summer 2015 crisscrossing the sovereign state formerly known as Burma alone. After nearly a half-century of military rule, the country began to transition to a more democratic system about five years ago and has since welcomed an increased number of international travelers. In the time since, travel publications have dubbed it one of the world’s best tourist destinations, touting the country’s eclectic cultural makeup and more than 100 ethnic groups.
Bockino’s e-book, titled “Greetings From Myanmar,” examines the country’s rapid transition and the content is organized around his interactions with locals, artists, tour guides and traveling businessmen. His travels included both daylong bus rides, observing buffalo, farming and rice paddies, as well as luxurious stays in Naypyidaw, the “new capital city the country created out of thin air,” he said. A short excerpt is available on Bockino’s website.
“It’s a complex time in Myanmar,” Bockino said. “That’s why I wanted to go there. I wanted to experience it firsthand and see it for myself. There are few countries in the world that have 50-60 million people who have been entirely isolated from the international global community. The transition in this country socially, culturally and economically is a really fascinating topic right now.”
In preparation for his trip, as well as to fulfill his own curiosity, Bockino read extensively about Myanmar. Most of the current news from the region emphasizes Aung San Suu Kyi, the country’s most visible political figure and a Nobel Peace laureate.
“Most of what I read also detailed how horrible it has been in the country and for its people during the past half-century,” Bockino noted. “And it certainly has been horrible. But I wanted to create a piece on Myanmar that was a little more optimistic, a little more grounded in the experiences of the people right now.”
“I’ve never considered myself a journalist, and I still don’t, but I enjoy talking to people,” he added, explaining his informal interviewing style. “I think talking to individual people helps illuminate larger trends and topics. That is the point of the piece: to see these stories of individual people and to talk about the larger issues they face.”
Bockino emphasized that the book isn’t just a first-person memoir, having supplemented the topic with months of research and historical perspective. “It’s very historically driven with primary sources,” he said. “I spent many weeks in the library pulling it together.”
Bockino explained that he was caught in no man’s land, with content too long for magazines and too light for a full-blown book. “I had a piece that was about 20,000 words. And what do you do with a piece that is 20,000 words?” he asked. “That’s a quarter of a book.”
The team at Kindle Singles, and his editor, Ali Castleman, offered Bockino an easy, online distribution model and assisted with copyediting, cover design and promotion. Most importantly, the publication will also have “access to the most voracious readers in the country and the world,” he said.
“I didn’t want ‘Greetings From Myanmar’ to be a book with a bunch of filler,” Bockino said. “I wanted it to be a way for people to learn about this country in an entertaining and enjoyable way. And Kindle Singles is a great way for an author, a new author like myself, to be seen and read.”
