David Farley, travel writer and author of An Irreverent Curiosity: In Search of the Church’s Strangest Relic in Italy’s Oddest Town, is an instructor at the Book Passage Travel Writers and Photographers conference (as well as at NYU and Columbia University). Farley tells us how he researched his book — the true story of his search for a unique holy relic, the foreskin of Jesus, which went missing from an Italian church under mysterious circumstances. (Check out the National Geographic special about Farley and his search for the holy foreskin.)

Farley also considers what makes good travel writing, ways to use a quest, and how to approach writing story leads. And he seduces us with visions of his extensive collection of 19th-century wooden legs.