Amanda Coggin is a free spirit who believes that when humans aren’t using their inherent gift of creativity, they get grumpy. She also knows what it’s like to be homeless. Having moved twelve times in San Francisco, she’s opted to call The City and the Bay Area home since she’s been there longer than anywhere else. In her eleven years there, she’s lived in fifteen different places and eleven of those she’s never paid rent. Bouncing from Paul Hawken’s houseboat to others along a Sausalito dock, to sleeping on friends’ floors next to their growing pot plants, and then eventually to random people’s apartments that she’s cared for from hunting them down on Craigslist. She finally took someone’s recommendation to register as homeless, if only to benefit from the free health care. They say home is where the heart is, but for Amanda, home is any place where her backpack can sit and recover until her next great adventure.
Her love of travel began in Italy, as a college blonde that the Roman men enamored. She grasped the Italian language while tutoring English and quickly learned that screaming, “Va fanculo!” to young boys who grabbed her made her feel independent. So after backpacking Europe at nineteen, and then a two-year solo journey through Asia at twenty-six, she decided that traveling to experience the world’s cultures would be her lifelong study.
It’s been as many countries as she has in years, on three separate continents, and she’s still going. Her personal motto: “The world showed up for us to explore, so let’s go see,” is still intact.
When she is or isn’t traveling, she’s writing. Her love of the written word began when she entered a writing contest at the Chicago Sun Times to answer the question, “Why is your dog your best friend?” Her first published words at the age of ten were, “When my parents divorced, Misty (her golden retriever) licked my tears.” She won two tickets to the Purina Dog Show and spent the next twenty-three years developing her craft.
When she is traveling, she’s also shooting photography in order to capture the spirit of the people and places where’s she’s laid her backpack.
In February 2006, she embarked on a two-month drive through Mexico and the United States in a one-hundred dollar van that her dead ex-boyfriend bought off Craigslist. Some say she can’t stand still and has celebrated and suffered enough. Others applaud her when she’s not looking.
In March 2007, Amanda was hired as a staff writer for DivineCaroline, the first venture of Real Girls Media in San Francisco.
Amanda has one book manuscript down and the next one to go. The works here on her blog are pieces of that next book project puzzle in progress.
To think that I had to go to my daughter Amanda’s blog site to learn that she lived a debaucherous life! I can hardly wait for the book to get more details.
I can handle it darlin’. Your Dad did a little debauchery in his young adult life as well!
Love ya, DAD
Comment by DAD — February 21, 2007 @ 1:37 am
So ’tis true, apples fall close to their trees.
Comment by Amanda — September 22, 2007 @ 8:58 am
Hi Amanda!
Did you go to IU?
I had a sorority sister named Amanda Coggin and didn’t know what happened to her. Just curious.
I hope the book gets picked up!! Good luck.
Love your articles.
heather
Comment by heather smith-mcleod — March 28, 2008 @ 9:54 am
I discovered your article while procrastinating on another project on Divine Caroline. I was excited to read more about a photographer and writer living a life I aspire to. I haven’t read all of your work, but I was touched by the words on your blog about your life and it’s ups and downs. Thank you so much for your words and now I’m on to your photo site to check you out there as well. I look out for more of your work. Thanks.
Comment by Aisha — June 4, 2008 @ 1:45 pm
I read your story “My Boyfriend’s Ashes”. It was so sad, yet a wonderful reminder that nothing in life is certain or permanent. Despite tragedy we must press forward and keep fighting the good fight. I’m looking forward to the memoir.
Comment by Josie — September 29, 2008 @ 2:52 pm
Oddly enough I ventured here from the DivineCaroline site reading your article on large insects. Upon arriving at this website I read “A Letter to Gram’s With Shades of Hope”. It was very touching and must have been difficult to reminisce that period while placing on paper. I would be very surprised if there were no teardrops on the manuscript. God Bless you!
Comment by Benz — May 10, 2009 @ 2:16 pm
Amanda, I am glad I found you on Divine Caroline recently and am very touched by your life. Thank you for sharing all your pains, doubts, uncertainties and questions about life which many of us are looking for answers ourselves. Keep writing.
Comment by Sole2sole — August 6, 2009 @ 9:55 am
Ms. Coggin,
Your writing is sharp. Well done.
I noticed your work (photos) in the Detroit Artist Registry.
I admire your work, and invite you to show it on the website that I have just launched: www.grassfedart.com. As of this moment, we have ZERO (give or take) members. We are just getting started, and I want to start with artwork for which quality and depth are self-evident.
Have a look if you are interested: (http://www.grassfedart.com)
Otherwise, you can blast this message into oblivion.
And, good luck with your work.
Cheers,
Jim
Comment by Jim Welke — October 29, 2009 @ 2:51 pm