With English as the effective world linga franca you'd reckon a native-speaker of the language with a teaching qualification would be on a pretty firm wicket when it comes to funding an itchy foot. Need to pull in a few quid to fund the next leg of the journey? Simple. Spend a while teaching English in a language school in whatever exotic location you're currently gracing with your presence.
If you've got a bit of creative flair you might even manage to morph that teaching gig into something more lucrative, a forty-programme language teaching series; English By Accident, for Thai national television, for example.
And if you've got that sort of creative flair you might find yourself doing a spot of writing and/or cartooning, which has, from what I can gather, been the source of Colin Cotterill's recent income streams.
Prior to writing the highly individual series of crime novels based around Dr. Siri, the national coroner in the People's Democratic Republic of Laos Colin Cotterill had taught Physical Education instructor in Israel, primary school in Australia, worked with educationally handicapped adults in the US, and lectured at a university in Japan before settling in Southeast Asia.
After working in child protection and training program for caregivers for abused children, Cotterill branched out into writing, with novels based on child-protection issues, the Dr Siri series and, more recently with feisty young female reporter Jimm Juree, a character based in the fishing community on the Gulf of Siam where Cotterill lives with his wife with his wife, Jessi, and ever-expanding pack of dogs.
Dr. Siri Paiboun series:
The Coroner’s Lunch (2004)
The Thirty-Three Teeth (August 2005)
Disco For the Departed (August 2006)
Anarchy and Old Dogs (August 2007)
Curse of the Pogo Stick (August 2008)
The Merry Misogynist (August 2009)
Love Songs from a Shallow Grave (August 2010)
Slash and Burn (October 2011)
Jimm Juree series:
Killed At The Whim Of A Hat (2011)
Grandad, There's a Head on the Beach (2012)
