Fond Farewell to a Friend
Posted Sunday, January 28, 2007, 10:22 PM by Lonely Planet
Tom Parkinson, one of our star authors who has worked for us for seven years and a regular stalwart of any LP London social function, has sadly passed away from a heart attack on Friday 19th January.
Tom was one of our fearless, go anywhere, do anything, live-to-travel seriously hardcore authors. He started his association with LP back in 2001 when he interviewed, fresh out of Cambridge, for an editorial position. His thirst for adventure and his love of all things weird and obscure ultimately drew him to the authoring side of LP and he attended a new author workshop alongside other stalwarts such as Mark Elliott, Josephine Quintero and Andrew Stone. Before long he had chalked up an impressive and far-ranging number of titles for Lonely Planet, including guidebooks, trade & reference titles and digital articles - check out his article on Berlin's music scene currently on the homepage of lp.com. He was in the middle of writing up Madagascar for us, having just spent three months there, and was due to start work on the first edition of Borneo after that.
On a more personal note, Tom would always attend any social function we had at this office and would often be found long after everyone else had gone home propping up the bar with Neil Wilson and David Else, among others. He was always great fun to talk to, an interesting, inspiring guy who was most definitely living his life to the full. He will be sorely missed.
-Imogen Hall, Regional Publishing Manager UK
Read more about Tom's life, work and friends.
Labels: Travelsnitch
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16 Comments:
I'd really only just started to get to know Tom but he seemed like a genuinely nice guy, and really (really!) passionate about travel and guidebooks and Borneo itself. He was really excited about the new Borneo book and it was fantastic for me (with limited experience in that region) to be working with someone who was so clued up about the area. Tom had a really fantastic reputation among the Commissioning Editors I spoke to who had worked with him before - he was top of the list when I started asking people who I should send to Borneo. It's been nice to know some other details about Tom that have come out in people's emails.. I didn't know when commissioning him, for example, that he was a stalwart of Lp social events - that makes me like him even more! Farewell Tom.
Errol Hunt, commissioning editor, LP.
Tom was the first person I met when I started working for LP in 2004, and he offered kindness and lots of friendly advice, much soothing to a novice like me. His writing always served as a great example, and he was known to authors (as well as staffers) as one of LP's best. He'll be missed in our guidebooks, as well as our hearts.
Vesna Maric, Author
I've been an LP author for many years and always thought of Tom as one of the real stars of the author brigade and a real leader as well. Recently I recruited an old friend to become an LP author. He got through the screening process and I was very happy to mentor him along the way. As a veteran journalist from New York, he had no shortage of pointed questions.
His first assignment was to work on Borneo with Tom. I routinely emailed my friend to see how things were going and he wrote back that he was amazed at the help he was getting from Tom, as his coordinator on the book. He sent along some of the emails Tom was sending him getting him ready for Borneo. I was not surprised at how good they were and was deeply impressed at the professionalism and generosity Tom was showing to a new author.
Being an LP author can be pretty demanding, especially if it's your first assignment. In his work with my friend, Tom was showing the kind of brilliance and commitment that made him not just an icon to other authors, but also Lonely Planet and the countless travelers, whose journeys were made more rewarding, more fun and more memorable thanks to Tom's work.
-Ryan Ver Berkmoes
LP Author, former LP publisher
I met Tom just the once, at the 2005 London workshop. Ironically it turned out that he'd initially been offered, but had had to turn down, what became my first LP gig, the Munich & Bavaria 2 book. We chatted quite a bit at that workshop and at the end of it, he came up and told me that he was "glad Bavaria had gone to a good home", which is a really nice memory.
Catherine Le Nevez, Author
Tom was my cousin, though I'd never met him because I live in Canada; I was thinking of seeing him and the family soon... I am saddened never to have met what sounds like a fantastic guy, with a beautifully fulflled taste for adventure and life, someone who was loved and appreciated by those around him. I know his family is devastated.
Phil Mineau, Odense.
It's hard to believe that someone with so much vitality can be gone so young. Tom was a great guy, so intelligent and fun to hang out with. I remember the first time I met him we went to dinner with a group of authors after an author workshop in London. We were at the restaurant down the road from the office and Tom and I had everyone in hysterics, we were playing around making sailor caps out of the napkins to go off exploring...the menu.
I knew Tom better socially but I did work with him briefly on the Berlin guide. Tom knew that book inside out and didn’t need much from me in a CE capacity; instead he would give me updates of his travels, what he was up to and how much fun he was having. He was always so upbeat and up for anything.
Tashi Wheeler, Melbourne office
As an author Tom was dependable, tenacious, spirited and talented; as a frequent visitor to LP's London office and social events he was cheerful, likable and fun. I will miss him.
Katrina Browning, London office
I'm hoping there will be a video on lp.com soon, but I'll share the
accompanying story now.
My first week of switching from author to the acting Author Liaison Manager was last year's London author workshop in
late March. Of course, Tom was there, sharing stories, author tips
and a few beers. And, for good measure, a few more beers.
At a small dinner of authors and staff the last night, after making
me laugh so hard I cried, Tom decided I should play an April Fool's joke on the author and staff yahoo group. He came up with the idea of the 'Author Cam' and sent an email for me to publish the very next day:
Hi Alex,
An 'Author Cam' sounds like a great idea! I'd love to get involved, but I have a few questions. Would we wear the camera strapped on as
a headpiece? [And so on...]
-Tom
The joke would have been my very first post as ALM, so I chickened
out. However, about a month later, I met with colleagues at the
Melbourne office, who were working with media-savvy authors to shoot
footage on the road, and did I know any particularly appropriate
authors?
Tom was, of course, the first person I contacted. He thought about it for half a second before he decided, Why not? Sounds like a great laugh. I'm keeping my fingers crossed the video has been produced.
-Tom ('Dash Tom'), as he always signed his emails, was a wonderful writer and die-hard adventurer, but he was also a mentor to newer LP authors (I won't say younger, as there weren't many!) and a support to fellow authors (and, I quickly learned, to the ALM). I wish I could tell him one more time how much I appreciated this part of his personality.
Alex Leviton
author and former acting-ALM
Tom, what were you thinking? going and dying of a heart attack at 28? It’s not right. it's upset the natural order of things and left us all distinctly shaken and crying into your favourite, beer.
You were supposed to grow old (disgracefully, probably). we were expecting you to be there for years yet, propping up the bar in both a bow-tie and feather boa.
We'd got used to you all too accurately warning us that 'you
may miss little things like soap in the bathrooms' or slyly describing godforsaken places like rostock as having 'the best nightlife north of berlin' (not much competition there, eh?)
You were supposed to have decades more adventures, get into more amusing scrapes. and most importantly of all you were supposed to go on to bigger
and better things.
So don't think you can go skiving off in the big write-up in the sky. get back here immediately, young man, and finish that bloody book!
Sarah Johnstone, Author
My heartfelt condolences to Tom's family. Tom was one of the first
authors I recruited back in 2001 when for the first time we started
actively looking for new guidebook writers. His energy, dynamism,
intelligent writing and tenacity were such that, hundreds of writing samples later, I still remember the writing sample he did on a neighbourhood of Berlin. I never had the privilege of meeting Tom but he's obviously someone who made an impression on people and the world.
Cath Lanigan
Tom and I worked on author perspectives for the author manual and emailed back and forth a few times. I remember thinking how funny and cheerful he was and how we joked about just what we should tell the newbies about life on the road. I too was shocked to hear about his death. I've been in Australia researching for the last month, and after I heard about his death I popped into a few bookshops. It seems like his face is all over the place - I didn't realize how many books he had written, quite an accomplishment in such a few years. I want to pass my sincere condolences on to his family, and too all his friends at Lonely Planet who had the opportunity to get to know him. I wish I had had the same chance.
Becca Blond
Could you please pass condolences to his family of Tom on behalf of myself and Joel Henry, authors of Experimental Travel. When we put the call out for experimental travel participants Tom was one of the first to respond and he quickly invented a game to suit his particular talents: Barman's Knock. We couldn't have asked for a friendlier traveller or more committed drinker and needless to say, he performed the task brilliantly. We are very sad to hear of his sudden passing and the loss of such a young and enthusiastic writer. We only hope that he continues his travels in another dimension, ideally somewhere that the pubs do not close at 11pm, as they did in his account.
Kind regards,
Rachael Antony and Joel Henry
Authors of Experimental Travel
I was working with Tom on the new Borneo guide. Aside from enjoying his kind encouragement and insights for this assignment, I've basked in his reflected goodwill along the way.
I am a friend of Tom from Turkey.I met this great guy in Amasya..He was so kind.It is too hard to believe that Tom died.His blue eyes and his great personality is his inheritage..He was a nice guy.He was intelligent..I will never forget you,TOM PARKINSON..
ibrahim
I met Tom at Madagascar. I was studying the island to become a guide for finnish there, and met Tom in front of an internet cafe in Tulear. I asked him for a beer, and that's how our friendship started.
The next evenings we were playing pool at nights, and working at day time. After a week I flew back to Finland, just to return with a tourist group after two weeks. We met again in south of the capital, and of course went for pool and jokes. After Madagascar we kept in touch with e-mail. I was wondering why Tom is not answering the mails, just to find out, one year later the terrible news... I'm wordless...
I go back to Tulear on February, and drink for my fried Tom, and beat the locals in pool for You! Cheers Tom!
Tom was one of my best friends, greatest housemate in the world, loyal table football partner, co-collector of all words froodian and magnificent, fellow cheesecake connoisseur and die-hard beer buddy. I was his very willing travelling companion for Barman's Knock, and more other pub crawls than I care to, or in any way physically can, remember. It was an honour, Tombo. It's hard to believe it's nearly one year on.
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