Leslie Westbrook

Author and radio producer Leslie Westbrook said she was “surprised and pretty darn excited” when she learned she’d won a Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism award from the Society of American Travel Writers Foundation. Her radio report, “Art, Drink and Gentrification in the Funk Zone,” produced for KCBX, and featured here last September, gained her a winning spot hot on the heels of no less than Rick Steves and the Frommer’s travel-guide folks. “Just like Dorothy in Oz, my own backyard provided fodder for a story that held international appeal and fulfilled my heart’s desire,” Westbrook said. “I’m only sorry I wasn’t in Iceland, where they announced the winners.”