Frances Webb

Roamers and Wanderers Frances Webb

This mixed genre of short stories and poems set in the 1950s, '60s, and '70s have one thing in common: They show how travel opens the world to new ideas, yet expresses the universality of mankind.

Roamers and Wanderers is a collection of short stories and some poetry set in different countries or cities and written over a period of about forty years. Each is about travel and the effect the trip has on the traveler. Characters may react in negative or positive ways. In one case, memories surface, resulting in emotional turmoil. Primarily in the poems, political issues are visited.

In the first short story, "Markers," a newly married woman confronts the controlling behavior exhibited by her husband.

The poem "Take Off" reveals the universal fear of flying. In the poem "Nobody Knows," a woman reflects on how she appears to others - looking crazy? - in the airport as she walks back and forth looking for the ground transportation sign.

In "Remembering Caracas," the narrator is waiting in a Rhode Island train station and notices a provocative sentence built into the tile floor: "I travel not to get someplace but travel for travel's sake." This exemplifies all the stories in this collection.

(About the Author)

Retired teacher Frances Webb has written many short stories over the years and plans her next book to be another short story collection. She grew up in a small town in North Jersey in a house built in the 1890s by her grandfather.