Forced to give up my dream of becoming a detective after overdoing my fixation with Nancy Drew, a series of novels for young girls written in the 1930s, a time when cars still had rumble seats and well before I was born, I decided to become a writer instead. I was ten and thought the best way to make this a paying profession was to write a newsletter about the neighborhood dogs. Of course, my neighbors had to buy copies because how do you say no to a ten-year-old? And, it only costs 10 cents an issue.

I’ve upped my game since then and am a freelance writer, author, columnist, blogger, influencer, and photographer who specializes in travel, food, book reviews, personalities, culture, architecture, wine, spirits, traditions, and lifestyles.

But my degrees aren’t in journalism. Instead, I earned undergraduate and master’s degrees in psychology from Indiana University and have worked in both private practice and as a school psychologist. If that seems far afield from writing, it’s actually not.

As a psychologist, you learn to listen, to analyze, and synthesize in order to understand. The same is true when interviewing people or gathering information for an article, whether it’s talking to a woman about making wine in her adega (an underground family wine cellar) in a small Spanish village, interviewing the president of the United States while surrounded by men with guns hidden, kind of, under their suit jackets, or making maultaschen, a Swabian dumpling in a German monastery that dates back to the 12th century. It’s about connecting and learning and ultimately, as a writer, sharing the story.

My Travel/Food blog, janeammeson.com, now gets about 300,000 views. I also write about books for my shelflife.blog, which features my interviews with authors. I am a book reviewer for the New York Journal of Books and a panelist for Voyage. My travel and food podcasts are available on Spotify. My weekly book column and bi-weekly travel column for the Northwest Indiana Times, the second largest paper in the state, and the third largest in the Chicagoland area. I also write a weekly food column for the Herald Palladium, the largest paper in Southwest Michigan.

I just interviewed Chef José Andrés, who is one of my personal heroes, for an upcoming story in Chicago Life Magazine.

You can also find my work in MexConnect, Great Lakes Boating (destination pieces), Long Weekends Magazine, Southland Today (a suburban Chicago newspaper), Get Healthy, Edible Michiana, Ohio Magazine, and Edible Indy. I have also written updates for Lonely Planet.

I am a former James Beard Tasting Judge and currently a Citizen Judge for the Taste Awards and Design Den. I have written 16 non-fiction books on such varied subjects as historic true crime, restaurants, and history. My book "Lincoln Road Trips," published by Indiana University Pres,s won the Bronze Award in the Lowell Thomas Journalism Awards for Best Travel Book. My books cover such diverse topics as food and historic true crime. I am the editor of the Midwest Travel Journalists' monthly newsletter, have contributed to USA Today’s Best of series, and have written several travel apps.

Though my most common mode of travel is by car or plane, when I can, I love to horseback ride through a variety of landscapes. You see the world in a much different way.

People I have interviewed for my book blog, columns and magazine and newspaper articles include Erik Larson, Kirk Herbstreit, John Grisham, John Meacham, Drew Barrymore, Harlan Coben, Chris Bohjalian, Perez Hilton, Reggie Brooks, Kate White, Karen White, Merrill Markoe, Michael Ian Black, Pete Buttigieg, Ginger Zee, Scott Turow, Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, Alexandra Petri, Lisa Gardner, Anthony Horowitz, Chuck Hogan, Madeleine Albright, Kristen Doute, Ruth Ware, David Bell, Louise Candlish, Reagan Pasternak, David Baldacci, and Lee Child.

For my food and travel blog as well as my food column, Edible magazines, and other newspapers and magazines, I have interviewed such chefs/cookbook authors/ restaurateurs as this year’s James Beard Best Chef Southwest, Andrew Black and Sherry Pocknett of Sly Fox Den Too in Charlestown, RI, who became the first Indigenous woman to win a James Beard Award.

I’ve also interviewed Ina Garten, Alex Guarnaschelli, Jacque Pepin, Abra Berens, Melissa King, Stephanie Izard, Buddy Gail Simmons, Andrew Zimmern, Scott Conant, Tara Bench, Jerrelle Guy, Mark Bittman, Janet Fletcher, Katie Parla, Anne Willans, Justin Chapple, Adam Richman, Paul Saginaw, Abra Berens, Dorie Greenspan, Valerie Bertinelli, Tiffani Thiessen, Danielle Walker, Lisa Ludwinski, Emeril, Mario Batali, Lidia Bastianich, Marcella Hazan, Lorenza d’Medici, Geoffrey Zacharian, Giada de Laurentis, Carla Hall, Ree Drummond, Nigella, Judson Todd Allen, Fabio, Jose Pizarro, John Besh, Kristin Cavallari, and Mindy Segal among others.

I love both big cities and taking the roads less traveled. If there’s a dirt road, I follow it, traveling through sights and scenes that take me into the past and unfamiliar cultures such as those of the Amish, who still travel by horse and buggy. In a city like Chicago, full of wonderful ethnic neighborhoods, you’ll find me trying to order lunch in a Ukrainian grocery store where I’m the only one who speaks English. In New York, look for me raising a tankard of ale at the Fraunces Tavern, the place where General George Washington hosted his officers after winning the Revolutionary War.

Travel and food are about connection. And it’s all about how, really, we’re more alike, wherever we live, than not.