Peace Corps Worldwide

Years ago I went to St. Louis University as a 17-year-old undergraduate to attend their Writer’s Institute and to prepare myself to be the next Great American Novelist. The Writer’s Institute was then one of the few ‘writing programs’ in the country. I never became the Great American Novelist, and in typical Jesuit logic the University closed down their wonderful Writer’s Institute in the 1960s, just when many colleges and universities across the country were emulating the great Iowa Writer MFA program. Teaching creative writing has now become a cash cow for higher education. I am not sure how many full-time and low-residency creative writing programs there are in the U.S. and around the world, but it must be in the thousands. What I find particularly amusing is not that there are so many programs (mostly for poets) but how they go about ‘selling’ themselves to would-be Great American Novelists. . . .

Barry Kitterman will read from his newest collection of short stories, From the San Joaquin, at 7:30 p.m. May 9 in Huber Auditorium in Badgley Hall, Room 102 at EOU. Copies of the author’s work will be available for purchase and signing following the reading presented by EOU’s Ars Poetica Lecture Series. The event is free and open to the public. Kitterman grew up in the small town of Ivanhoe in the San Joaquin Valley and received his undergraduate degree in English at the University of California at Berkeley. After spending two years in the Peace Corps in Belize, he completed the master of fine arts program at the University of Montana. Author Robert Garner McBrearty writes, “Kitterman’s stories are humorous and poignant, tender and touching in their memorable depiction of life in small-town California. He renders his characters so authentically and compassionately we feel we know their hopes and . . .

The Unofficial Peace Corps Handbook by Travis Hellstrom (Mongolia 2008–11) Advance Humanity Publishing 2010 234 pages $15.95 paperback Review by Lawrence F. Lihosit (Honduras, 1975-77) HELLSTROM’S GUIDE IS OF THE MYSTICAL GENRE, much like Zen In the Art of Archery, for this is a book about acceptance. Unlike recent guides which outline application, training, service and homecoming, this book offers very few lists. It offers comfort. “The happiest Peace Corps Volunteers are the ones who make peace,” explains the author. Be forewarned that if you are concerned about our voracious appetite for paper and the disappearance of forests, the format might disturb you: it contains 97 blank pages (more than one third of the book). The blank pages are for volunteers to write on. Of the pages with print, many contain less than 20 lines like a poetry book. I imagine that the author’s intent is akin to poetry — . . .

Lullaby for the Rain Girl by Christopher Conlon (Botswana 1988–90) Dark Regions Press, 2012 $45.00 341 pages Reviewed by Leita Kaldi Davis (Senegal 1993–96) A GHOSTLY GIRL STANDS IN THE DRIVING RAIN without getting wet, facing a mist-shrouded clock tower whose hands are stuck at 4:20. Her mother jumped from that tower long ago, when she, the girl, was a mere blastocyst in her mother’s womb. Many years later she appears as a zombie-like being to her father, who’s ironically named Benjamin Fall. She tries to explain her presence. People like me are not people . . . but whatever we are we’re not ghosts. We’re not spirits. We’re fragments. Partials. Incompletions. If you can love me . . . really love me . . . I might be able to become complete. Ben had somehow conjured her through his own despair and need. He is a high school teacher . . .

Terrence McCoy (Cambodia 2009-11) is, I think, the first RPCV to publish an Amazon Kindle Single. It is the story of how China is trying to buy Cambodia and one woman’s quest to stop it. Called, The Playground, the e-book is  ’36-pages’ long (sells for $1.99) and McCoy mentions the Peace Corps several times. Here’s a quick summary: We’ve heard of China’s buying sprees. That it’s plowed billions of dollars into some of the poorest nations in the world. But the story we don’t know is what this money means for the people there. In Cambodia, the cost has been devastating. More than 700,000 people have lost their homes – others their lives – while China buys the former killing fields for resorts, hotels, and exclusive residences. And as this country of genocide descends into another era of chaos and violence, some whisper it’s the second coming of Pol Pot. But one woman . . .

The regional premiere of “Gruesome Playground Injuries” by Cleveland Heights native Rajiv Joseph will be April 27 at Ensemble Theatre at 8 p.m. This play opened last January on Second Stage in New York City. In “Gruesome Playground Injuries,” childhood friends Kayleen and Doug find their lives intersecting as they compare the scars and physical calamities that keep drawing them together. Joseph today is a writer on Showtime’s current season of the drama “Nurse Jackie,” has won numerous awards, including being a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2010. Still, Joseph, who moved to Cleveland Heights when he was four says he is “amazingly excited” to see his work produced where he grew up. “I had works produced all over the world before I was able to do something in Cleveland,” said Joseph.   Joseph says the play is “about a relationship, a friendship. It’s a love story about people who . . .

No Senator’s Son by RJ Huddy has just been published by Peace Corps Writers Books. RJ Huddy is the pen name of  Bob Cochrane who was a PCV in Errachidia, Morocco from 1981-83.  This novel–No Senator’s Son–is about a young historian who decides to pursue his father’s dream for him and run for Congress. To accomplish this he must turn his back on his profession and on the woman he loves. People don’t vote for a man who speaks openly of historical events such as the Palestinian diaspora, and they don’t vote for a man with a Palestinian wife. So for nearly thirty years he hides his views on the Middle East, and his love for the beautiful Aziza Hatoum, choosing instead to lead a deteriorating, toxic life as a Kentucky Congressman. His squandered love has gained him nothing–nothing except the chance to run for president. Nothing except the chance to go for broke, with . . .

The Farther Shore by Rob Davidson (Eastern Caribbean 1990–92) Bear Star Press 158 pages $16.00 (paperback) 2012 Reviewed by Mark Brazaitis (Guatemala 1991-93) IF YOU ASK UNDERGRADUATES to name a modern short story writer they like, they might say (if they don’t say “Stephen King” or, forgetting what “modern” means, “Edgar Allan Poe”) “Raymond Carver,” although Carver died in 1988. There’s a good reason why: Carver’s stories about working class men and women in crisis are as elegant as they are spare. To compress so much emotion, so much complex psychology, so much life into such narrow borders is a wonder. So it’s no wonder Carver continues to have devotees — and imitators. If you’re an American short story writer and you haven’t been influenced, at least a little, by Carver, well, poor you. Most of the stories in Rob Davidson’s new collection The Farther Shore share with Carver’s tales . . .

No Senator’s Son by R.J. Huddy (Morocco 1981–82) Peace Corps Writers 380 pages $17.50 (paperback), $2.99 (Kindle) 2011 Reviewed by Lawrence F. Lihosit (Honduras, 1975–77) FANS OF HARD-BOILED CRIME a la James M. Cain (The Postman Always Rings Twice) and political thrillers a la Jeffrey Archer (Kane and Abel) should make room on your bookshelves for R.J. Huddy’s third novel. The book follows an obscure Kentucky Congressman and his sons from 1959 until the 1990s. The author uses family tension to lay out a story about the Palestine problem and in so doing, simultaneously explores our government’s role in the Middle East from the time of FDR. The Congressman longs to create a family political dynasty but his youngest son volunteers for the armed forces rather than submit. He is killed in Vietnam. The older son studies at Georgetown, then in Beirut when it was still considered a Paris of . . .