Archive - April 2015

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Stanley Meisler (PC Staff 1964-67) Publishes: Shocking Paris: Soutine, Chagall and the Outsiders of Montparnasse
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Gerald Karey writes: The Rumor Project
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Africa's Heart by Mark Wentling Featured in Kirkus Review for April
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Peter Hessler (China 1996-98) "An American Hero in China"
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Writers From the Peace Corps in WorldView Magazine
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Philip Brady (Zaire) to publish his verse memoir in June
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Former Peace Corps Deputy Dies in D.C.
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Peace Corps cites 20 percent increase in sexual assault reports: A sign of progress?
9
Bill Fitzpatrick (Sierra Leone 1987-89) Remains Found in West Africa
10
The Navel of the Mekong by Gerry Christmas (Thailand 1973-76 & Western Samoa 1976-78)
11
T.D. Allman (Nepal 1966-68) A Town in Nepal Teaches a Young American How to Live
12
Review: Everywhere Stories edited by Clifford Garstang (Korea 1976–77)
13
New Books by Peace Corps Writers — March 2015
14
Stanley Meisler (HQ Staff 1964-67) publishes SHOCKING PARIS
15
Writers from the Peace Corps

Stanley Meisler (PC Staff 1964-67) Publishes: Shocking Paris: Soutine, Chagall and the Outsiders of Montparnasse

Shocking Paris: Soutine, Chagall and the Outsiders of Montparnasse by Stanley Meisler (PC Staff 1964-67) Palgrave MacMillan 202 pages 2015 $26.00 Reviewed by Richard Lipez (Ethiopia 1962-64) • Full disclosure: Stan Meisler is one of the Peace Corps figures I have liked and admired most.  As a clueless upstart in the old Peace Corps Program Evaluation Division starting in 1964, I was lucky enough to have had Stan as a co-evaluator on three excursions out to where the real Peace Corps was stumbling along.  (A significant subset of people at Washington headquarters thought of the far-flung Volunteers as unglamorous supernumeraries, a kind of mud-stained boys’ and girls’ auxiliary, and the truest soul of the Peace Corps was to be found after work at Chez Francois next door on Connecticut Avenue). Stan and I went once to India together and twice to Ethiopia — both plenty real — to try to figure out how . . .

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Gerald Karey writes: The Rumor Project

The Rumor Project by Gerald Karey (Turkey 1965–67) . I Time was, rumors and gossip were neighborhood affairs, exchanged over back-yard fences, in cafes and taverns, doctors’ waiting rooms, barber shops and chance meetings on the street. Neighbors informed or misinformed neighbors, hearsay was the general rule, (“I heard from a friend who has friend who said . . . ”), lies were sworn by, people may have been slandered and there was occasional hate speech. But it was a trickle of talk in cities and towns across the U.S. — with a relatively limited number of actors and limited reach — before the Internet provided a conduit for a tsunami of rumors, gossip, lies, misinformation (“It must be true because I saw it on the Internet.”), and hate speech that echoes around the world. Nevertheless, during World War II this trickle of talk in thousands of places was sufficiently worrisome for . . .

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Africa's Heart by Mark Wentling Featured in Kirkus Review for April

Mark Wentling’s ((PCV Honduras 1967-69, 1970-73; PC Staff Togo, Gabon & Niger 1973-77)  Africa’s Heart was selected by the Indie Editors of Kirkus Reviews to be featured in their April, 2015 issue. His review is one of the 20 reviews in the Indie section of the 4/15 Kirkus Reviews magazine. The publication is sent to over 5,000 industry professionals (librarians, publishers, agents, etc.) Less than 10% of Indie reviews are chosen to be included in this publication. Below is the Kirkus Review of Africa’s Heart. Congratulations, Mark. Africa’s Heart The Journey Ends in Kansas Wentling, Mark Peace Corps Writers (532 pp.) $20.00 paper | $8.99 e-book Jan. 15, 2015 978-1-935925-55-2 An ambitious novel concludes Wentling’s (Africa’s Release, 2014) African trilogy. Letivi, chief of the Ataku village, is faced with a modern dilemma: wealth disparity is growing in the village between those families who have sent children to work in Europe (who . . .

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Peter Hessler (China 1996-98) "An American Hero in China"

The May 7, 2015 issue of The New York Review of Books carries an essay entitled, “An American Hero in China” that is all about Peter Hessler (China 1996-98) and states how “In China he (Hessler) has been transformed into a writer of cult-figure proportions whose fans analyze his love life, his translator’s finances, and his children’s education.” This essay was written by Ian Johnson, author of ten books, including Travels in Siberia. His connection to Peter is that in 1999 he hired Hessler to be a researcher in the Beijing bureau of The Wall Street Journal. He writes that “he (Peter) had already spent two years in the small Chinese city of Fuling as an English instructor at a teachers’ college.” Hello, Ian, Peter was in the Peace Corps! In this long, long piece in the NY Review of Books, Johnson never once mentions Helller’s Peace Corps connection. I . . .

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Writers From the Peace Corps in WorldView Magazine

This is the first of a series of four essays on writers from the Peace Corps that will appear in World View magazine. WorldView ∙ Spring 2015 ∙ National Peace Corps Association BOOK LOCKER WRITERS FROM THE PEACE CORPS An unheralded literary movement By John Coyne (Ethiopia 1962-64) One of the most important books of the late 1950s was The Ugly American by William J. Lederer and Eugene Burdick. The book’s hero was a skilled technician committed to helping at a grassroots level by building water pumps, digging roads, building bridges. He was called the “ugly American” only because of his grotesque physical appearance. He lived and worked with the local people and, by the end of the novel, was beloved and admired by them. The bitter message of the novel, however, was that American diplomats were, by and large, neither competent nor effective; and the implication was that the . . .

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Philip Brady (Zaire) to publish his verse memoir in June

  In June Philip Brady (Zaire 1980–82) will publish his verse memoir, To Banquet with the Ethiopians: A Memoir of Life Before the Alphabet, with Broadstone Books. The publishing sheet describes the book thus: Poised between myth and time, this unique verse memoir blends Homer’s discovery of the alphabet with a man’s recovery from near death and a boy’s struggle to see the adult world through the prism of an ancient epic. Brady is the author of three collections of poetry — Fathom, (Word Press, 2007); Weal (winner of the 1999 Snyder Prize from Ashland Poetry Press); and Forged Correspondences, (New Myths, 1996) chosen for Ploughshares’ “Editors’ Shelf” by Maxine Kumin. His essay collection is By Heart: Reflections of a Rust-Belt Bard (University of Tennessee Press, 2008). A memoir, To Prove My Blood: A Tale of Emigrations & The Afterlife, was published by Ashland Poetry Press in 2003. He co‑edited, . . .

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Former Peace Corps Deputy Dies in D.C.

RUTH MacKENZIE SAXE, Deputy Director of the Peace Corps under Carolyn Payton in the early ’70s, and a long time Washington resident, died at The Washington Home on March 15, 2015 at the age of 86. The cause of her death was complications from a series of strokes. A divorcee with two small children, she drove across the country from Minnesota, arriving in Washington on August 28, 1963, the day of Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream Speech” on the National Mall and worked for the Peace Corps as a program office in the Caribbean-area region until 1970, yet another Washington staffer to break Shriver’s famous 5-year-rule. In 1970 Saxe became the first Director of Volunteers at the citizens’ lobby Common Cause where she helped originate “The Washington Connection” linking DC area volunteers to the 435 congressional districts. She later served in a number of other positions at that . . .

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Peace Corps cites 20 percent increase in sexual assault reports: A sign of progress?

To read this article published by Devex.com, a website specializing in International Development News, here is the link: https://www.devex.com/news/peace-corps-cites-20-percent-increase-in-sexual-assault-reports-a-sign-of-progress-85889 The article describes Peace Corps efforts to “change the culture” in the agency so that victims of sexual assault receive the “best practices” in support and treatment.  Part of that change is to make Volunteers feel “safe” in coming forward with reports of such assaults.  Peace Corps Director Carrie Hessler-Radelet has been  discussing the work being done by the agency and the problems encountered. In my opinion, the Director is courageous with this  public discussion.

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Bill Fitzpatrick (Sierra Leone 1987-89) Remains Found in West Africa

Bill Fitzpatrick was a Park Ranger and airplane pilot for 25 years transporting people by air, boat and or by motor vehicle from remote locations throughout the US and in two parks in Africa. He responded to emergency law enforcement, search and rescue, medical and fire incidents. He also worked to save wild lands throughout the world by working in a variety of National and International Parks. A husband to Paula, and father of children,  Mary, Matthew and Cody, Bill disappeared on a flight in West Africa on June 22, 2013. This week his remains were found by villagers in Cameroon at a crash site in mountainous terrain where his Cesssna 172 went down. Bill was working as an anti-poaching pilot for one of the largest national wildlife preserves in Africa. Reports are that there was no foul play involving his death. Today his family is just grateful to have answers to . . .

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The Navel of the Mekong by Gerry Christmas (Thailand 1973-76 & Western Samoa 1976-78)

Gerry Christmas joined VISTA as a social worker and housing specialist in Utah. He then joined the Peace Corps and taught three years in Thailand and two years in Western Samoa. He graduated from the School for International Training, and taught in China, Japan, and the United States. He is now retired and living in Thailand. The Navel of the Mekong By Gerry Christmas I General Hunta felt beset by hyenas. He was a man of action to the core. He relished the great outdoors: the thrill of conflict, the camaraderie of men, the barking of orders, and the mass obedience of foot soldiers, tank commanders, and missile guidance technicians. Now he found himself in a hostile environment: in a sequestered government room surrounded by feckless, inept, and corrupt creatures, commonly called politicians. For months they had failed to do their job; they had failed to govern the nation. This hacked the . . .

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T.D. Allman (Nepal 1966-68) A Town in Nepal Teaches a Young American How to Live

“What I learned in Nepalganj” in the Peace Corps, “has kept me alive in situations when I might have gotten killed.” By T.D. Allman National Geographic April 12, 2015 NEPALGANJ Nepal-I met my first untouchables in Nepalganj, a writhing market town on the Indian border where living gods and human feces are scattered all over the place. I also became acquainted with my first prince there. He and his wife received me in their small palace, a whitewash-streaked ersatz-Palladian structure with a tin roof. Over tea we discussed defecation. It was a perplexing and important topic for a cleanliness-obsessed young American like me. For the first time in my life, I was living in a place where almost everyone was not white, and not prosperous, and not one person in a thousand had ever used toilet paper. My house had no toilet, only a circular cement hole in the floor. Daily-and . . .

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Review: Everywhere Stories edited by Clifford Garstang (Korea 1976–77)

Everywhere Stories: Short Fiction from a Small Planet edited by Glifford Garstang (Korea 1976–77); contributors include: Jeff Fearnside (Kazakhstan 2002–04), Jennifer Lucy Martin (Chad 1996-98) and Susi Wyss (Central African Republic 1990–92) Press 53 September 2014 234 pages $19.95 (paperback), $7.99 (Kindle) Reviewed by Jan Worth-Nelson (Tonga 76-78) • THERE’S SOMETHING POST-APOCALYPTIC about the twenty dark tales RPCV Clifford Garstang has gathered from around the world in this new short story collection, Everywhere Stories: Short Fiction from a Small Planet. If fiction is what tells us the real truth, these authors and Garstang, who has worked extensively internationally and thus could be said to be “a man of the world,” are delivering some hard news. Humanity’s dissolution into an entropy of violence and perils to the body and spirit are backdrop, foreground and theme. The worlds of these stories are unrelenting in their helplessness, almost casual cruelties, ignorance and silence . . .

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New Books by Peace Corps Writers — March 2015

To purchase any of these books from Amazon.com, click on the book cover, the bold book title, or the publishing format you would like — and Peace Corps Worldwide, an Amazon Associate, will receive a small remittance that will help support the site and the annual Peace Corps Writers awards. • My Life as a Pencil by Ron Arias (Peru 1963-64) Red Bird Chapbooks 2015 47 pages $12.00 (paperback) • Renewable: One Woman’s Search for Simplicity, Faithfulness, and Hope by Eileen Flanagan (Botswana 1984-86) She Writes Press March  2015 200 pages $16.95 (paperback), $9.95 (Kindle) • Of Mouse and Magic (Children) by Allan R. Gall (Turkey 1962–64) Two Harbors Press 278 pages 2011 $12.95 (paperback) • Fragments of the Corps: A Peace Corps Memoir by John Greven (Colombia 1964–68) CreateSpace 2014 258 pages $11.95 (paperback), $4.89 (Kindle) • One Degree South (Peace Corps novel) by Stephen L Snook (Gabon 1980–81; . . .

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Stanley Meisler (HQ Staff 1964-67) publishes SHOCKING PARIS

For a couple of decades before World War II, a group of immigrant painters and sculptors, including Amedeo Modigliani, Marc Chagall, Chaim Soutine and Jules Pascin dominated the new art scene of Montparnasse in Paris. Art critics gave them the name “the School of Paris” to set them apart from the French-born (and less talented) young artists of the period. Modigliani and Chagall eventually attained enormous worldwide popularity, but in those earlier days most School of Paris painters looked on Soutine as their most talented contemporary. Willem de Kooning proclaimed Soutine his favorite painter, and Jackson Pollack hailed him as a major influence. Soutine arrived in Paris while many painters were experimenting with cubism, but he had no time for trends and fashions; like his art, Soutine was intense, demonic, and fierce. After the defeat of France by Hitler’s Germany, the East European Jewish immigrants who had made their way . . .

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Writers from the Peace Corps

The Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) provides support, advocacy, resources, and community to nearly 50,000 writers, 500 college and university creative writing programs, and 130 writers’ conferences and centers. Their mission is to foster literary achievement, advance the art of writing as essential to a good education, and serve the makers, teachers, students, and readers of contemporary writing. This article on Peace Corps writers by John Coyne appears in their March 2015 on-line publication. Writers from the Peace Corps by John Coyne (Ethiopia 1962-64) Since 1961, Peace Corps writers have used their volunteer service as source material for their fiction and nonfiction. These writers have also found that the overseas experience has helped them find jobs once they returned home. Approximately 250,000 Americans have served in the Peace Corps. Of these volunteers and staff, more than 1,500 have published memoirs, novels, and poetry inspired by their experience. Many former . . .

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