ABOUT
Staff, Bio’s, Location & Contact Info
The Border Dispatch was founded by William Snyder, an American writer, documentary photographer, and publisher based in rural Northeast Thailand near the Cambodian border.
Working from a small independent field archive and publishing outpost, his work explores village life, ritual, labor, memory, movement, and the quiet atmospheres of the Thai borderlands through photography, keepsake field journals, documentary editions, and long-form narrative writing.
His publications include documentary photo books such as The Village and the ongoing Village Walk series, along with limited field editions and archival journal projects developed from being embedded in daily village life along the Thai-Cambodia-Laos border in Southern Isaan.
He is also the author of The Road Here, a literary work and origin story tracing collapse, movement, reinvention, and the long road toward an authentic life far from the world he left behind.
Across all formats, Snyder’s work is rooted in observation, sequencing, atmosphere, and the belief that ordinary places often contain the deepest stories.
Field journals, documentary editions, and archival publications are issued through The Border Dispatch Imprint.
Oscar Slamp is an American writer and the narrator of record for the 2025 novel The Road Here.
A longtime friend of the elusive Willie Lyonsan, he is occasionally insightful, frequently wrong, oddly perceptive, deeply skeptical, shamelessly biased and sometimes antagonistic. Oscar is completely unburdened by journalistic standards and a self-described “lapsed academic, part-time drunk, full-time witness” … and somehow he still gets to the truth.
Oscar is often found wandering the village offering unsolicited opinions on village affairs, international diplomacy, weather patterns, noodle quality, and modern civilization as a whole. It is still unclear how he remains employed.
Little is known about Oscar’s early life, though scattered references suggest a background in literature, divinity studies, and a brief stint in New Mexico that ended with fire damage and an unpublished manuscript. He emerged publicly through grainy zine articles and back pages of obscure travel blogs, always orbiting the chaos of Willie Lyonsan’s mythos.
Multiple theories suggest Oscar is a pseudonym or a narrative construct created by Willie himself. Others claim he’s real – a ghostwriter turned ghost. A defunct Reddit thread (archived via /r/lostliterature) posits that Oscar died in 2003, but posts continue under his name.
We’re not entirely certain Jit is her name. In Thailand, people have a habit of renaming themselves many times over the course of their lives.
What we do know is that she was born in the village and speaks fluent Isaan, Lao, Thai, and Khmer. Notice we didn’t include English in that fluency list. She speaks it fairly well but has a limited and very selective understanding of it – no doubt, strategic.
When she’s not correcting William and Oscar on their many uninformed theories about how things work around here, she’s arranging access to ceremonies and events, explaining cultural nuances, interpreting interviews and conversations, and preventing William – whom she married despite ample opportunity to reconsider – from accidentally offending entire provinces.
With a sharp sense of humor and a surprising degree of patience given what she deals with on a daily basis, Jit handles logistics, translation, route planning, and the ongoing task of determining whether a story is actually happening or merely sounds plausible after coffee.
With deep roots in the community and inside access to local customs, traditions, and ceremonies, she is responsible for making much of what is documented here possible.
CONTACT
The Border Dispatch
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Main Office and Publishing House
Somewhere Near Dom Pradit
14.3105° N, 105.0791° E
Nam Yuen District
Ubon Ratchathani Province
Thailand
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Bangkok Office and Recording Studio
Tucked away between Asok Montri Road (Soi Sukhumvit 21) and Soi Sukhumvit 23, aka Soi Cowboy, the office is occupied by an unreliable but enthusiastic rotation of volunteer staffers most of the year from 21:00 to 06:00 everyday except Monday.
If you know Soi Cowboy, or, even if you don’t, the office is 75 meters from Sukhumvit 21 on the left.
As for those of you thinking what you’re undoubtedly thinking, I don’t blame you. I’d probably be thinking the same thing.
The answer is, no. Sorry to burst your bubble. ;~}