L. Peat O'Neil (born 1949) is a travel writer and foreign service staff member at the Office of eDiplomacy of the U.S. Department of State.[1] O'Neil writes content for Diplopedia and collaborates on other social media programs.[2]
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O'Neil is best known for travel articles that appeared in The Washington Post from 1986 to 2003 as well as articles for dozens of other newspapers, magazines, websites and literary journals.[3] Publications featuring O'Neil's essays and articles include Travel + Leisure, Elle, Departures, Potomac Review,[4] National Geographic News[5][6][7] Toronto Star,[8][9] among others. She is a long time book reviewer and contributor to Bloomsbury Review[10] During nearly 20 years in the newsroom of the Washington Post, O'Neil wrote about travel, music, health, community events, religion and technology. One essay commenting on the pervasive use of the word "guys" as a form of address in the U.S., provoked letters to the editor of the newspaper and a subsequent discussion on Voice of America[11]
In search of adventure on the French GR 65 and Spanish footpaths of the Chemin de St-Jacques during 2001, O'Neil walked[12] alone through the Pyrenees Mountains from Hendaye on the Atlantic to Perpignan on the Mediterranean Sea. Pyrenees Pilgrimage, published in 2010, is an account of this journey.[13]
O'Neil started a solo travel career in secondary school, staying in youth hostels and building a global network of travel contacts. The author's travel writing career is discussed in an interview with blogger and writer Rolf Potts. Among other titles, O'Neil is the author of Travel Writing: See the World-Sell the Story[14] and a co-author of Making Waves.
"Travel Writing: A Guide to Research, Writing and Selling", is used by educators in undergraduate and graduate level programs. It has been translated into Chinese, Japanese, Italian and Korean. Authors refer to O'Neil's techniques in their own books about how to be a journalist.[15][16][17]
An early adapter in online education, O'Neil began teaching writing courses online in 1997 with the University of California, Los Angeles[18] and also developed online curricula for non-fiction writing courses offered at Graduate School USA in Washington, DC.
Other Adjunct Prof. assignments during the 1990s include web content management, online editing and writing in professional programs at GWU,[19] Georgetown[20] Smithsonian Resident Associates,[21] and Graduate School USA.[22] O'Neil presents at conferences[23] and moderates panels on journalism.[24]
During the 1980s she was media assistant to Pamela Harriman, Ambassador to France during the Clinton administration.
More colorful work includes: cutting and sewing sails and gear for racing yachts; hand-rolling cigars at a factory in Tampa; teaching motorcycle safety for Canada's Dept. of Transport; researching art for the Montreal Olympics sport art exhibition; pre-trial interviews of witnesses for industrial trademark infringement hearings; assisting a caterer in France; painting logos on the sides tractor-trailers; and ferrying automobiles for Avis between JFK/IAD/TPA.
In 1979, O'Neil founded a small public interest research group, Woman Health International, with a team of volunteer librarians.[25] The group's sole mission was to research the ingredients in tampons (a menstrual hygiene product) and to lobby the FDA to include consumers on the medical device review panel, then composed entirely of industry officials or medical specialists working for the manufacturers.[26] The resulting paper was published in the Center for Science in the Public Interest journal. O'Neil contributed a case study about the recall of Rely tampons to the first edition (1983) of Case Studies in Business, Society, and Ethics, edited by Tom Beachamp.[27] When the Asbestos Compensation Committee formed in 1981 to support a bill by then United States Senator Gary Hart, primarily to represent the interests of trial attorneys and asbestos manufacturers,[28] O'Neil consulted with the committee to advocate for former asbestos workers with long term disabling diseases which involved meetings with physicians, insurers, compensation analysts and lawmakers.[29]
Appointed the lowest academic rank - Demonstrator - at the University of Toronto Department of Preventive Medicine & Epidemiology, during the 1970s O'Neil also managed research budgets for the Department in the University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine. She collaborated on a pioneering medical textbook, Prevention in Clinical Practice with Robert W. Morgan, M.D.[30]
After successfully defending herself against a serial rapist in Florida, O'Neil wrote about the experience for the anthology of women's self-defense reports "Her Wits About Her" published in 1987. Continuing interest in self-defense techniques prompted O'Neil to write about Contemporary Fighting Arts and to seek training in kickbox and Japanese archery.
O'Neil grew up near Washington, DC on a modest family farm near Sandy Spring producing Christmas trees, eggs, honey and organic vegetables. O'Neil and family still keep bees. O'Neil's mother taught art and art history at Sandy Spring Friends School and during WWII worked in photo reconnaissance with the Women's Auxiliary Air Force. A maternal aunt married Bolesaw Michal Gladych who is O'Neil's Godfather. O'Neil's father, an architect, constructed topographic feature models used in Royal Air Force briefings in England. O'Neil's grandfather, Harold R. Peat was an author and lecturer and her grandmother, Louisa Watson Small Peat was an editor and author.[31]
O'Neil studied painting at the Corcoran College of Art and Design and with other artists, including Eliot O'Hara, who occasionally offered watercolor workshops in Maryland after his painting school burned. A lifelong philatelist, O'Neil is an active participant in global Mail artist. O'Neil participated in art collaboration projects such as Ryosuke Cohen's Brain Cell and G. A. Cavellini's archive. O'Neil's art works have appeared in painting exhibitions at the National Museum of Women in the Arts[32] and other venues.