Archive - August 2009

On November 18, 2009, Andrew Oerke (PC/Staff in Tanzania & Uganda, and CD in Malawi and Jamaica from 1966-71) will be presented with the USA Club of Rome Lifetime Achievement Awards for his latest collections of poems, Songs of Africa, published in English and Bulgarian by PSP & Fakel in Sofia, Bulgaria. The presentation will be made at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.  Andrew is the 2006 winner of the Peace Corps Writers Award for Best Poetry Book. He also received the United Nations Artists and Writer’s Association award for Literature for his two volumes African Stiltdancer and San Miguel de Allende. Besides his time with the Peace Corps, Andrew worked on microcredit projects in more than 60 nations around the world. Of his poetry, noted literary critic Harold Bloom has written, “Oerke’s eye is shrewd, his mind capacious, and his generosity toward humankind is endless. His poems, whether set in Africa, . . .

John Givens (Korea 1967-69) has a story in The Mississippi Review currently online at http://www.mississippireview.com. The Mississippi Review is published by the Center for Writers at the University of Southern Mississippi. The story is about a rogue samurai solving problems in the 17th century entitled, “The Buddha-nature of the House: John is from Northern California and earned his BA in English literature at the California State University Fresno and his MFA in creative writing at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, University of Iowa, where he was a Teaching/Writing Fellow. [John is one of many fine Peace Corps writers who attended the famous Iowa writing program. The RPCV writers include Phil Damon (Ethiopia 1963-65), who, I believe, was the first RPCV in the program,  Richard  Wiley (Korea 1967-69),  and most recently Matt Davis (Mongolia 2001-03).]  Afterwards John studied language and art in Kyoto for four years, then worked as a writer & editor in Tokyo for . . .

RPCV Kent Haruf’s (Turkey 1965-67) novel, Plainsong is one of the five books the President is reading this summer. The book is described on the jacket as a masterful detailing of unsettled lives, bound by their windswept town and landscape — “their fates somehow overcoming the powerful circumstances of place and station, their confusion, curiosity, dignity and humor intact and resonant.” Slate’s political writer, John Dickerson,  “analyzed” the list and said that Haruf’s book was the only one that showed “geographical and literary diversity.” The other four books are: The Way Home, by George Pelecanos Hot, Flat and Crowded, by Tom Friedman Lush Life, by Richard Price John Adams, by David McCullough

Footsteps by Kirsten Johnson (Kenya 1982–84) Plain View Press 2009 248 pages $18.95 www.plainviewpress.net

From the first days of the agency, Peace Corps Volunteers have been rich characters for novels not written by PCVs. The first books about the Peace Corps were young adult novels. In 1963, Breaking the Bonds: A Novel about the Peace Corps, written by Sharen Spence, had a short introduction by Sargent Shriver and was dedicated to “All Peace Corps Volunteers serving the world with discipline, determination, endurance, and a rare idealism.” This novel is set in Nigeria. Then in 1965 came a series of young adult novels entitled Kathy Martin: Peace Corps Nurse, about a Volunteer in Africa. Another “nursing novel” for a YA audience was written by Rachel G. Payes and published by Avalon Books in 1967. In 1968 came the most well known of all “Peace Corps novels,” The Zinzin Road, by the very successful commercial novelist and political writer, Fletcher Knebel, who worked briefly as a Peace . . .

Allah’s Garden Thomas Hallowell (Morocco) Tales Press 198 pages March 2009   The 38 Million Dollar Smile by Richard Stevenson (aka Richard Lipez (Ethiopia 1962-64) mlrpress September 2009   Four Corners: The Vineyards and Wineries of New Mexico, Arizona, Utah and Colorado By Starley Talbott (South Africa, 2001) Plainstar Press 2009 Trade Paperback $24.95   San Francisco Tenderloin true stories of heroes, demons, angels, outcasts & a psychotrherapist (Expanded Second Edition) by Larry Wonderling (PC/COR Puerto Rico 1968-70; Afghanistan 1970-73; early ’80s Central and Latin America; late ’80s Africa) Cape Foundation Publications, $24.95 408 pages 2008   Portrait of a Peace Corps Gringo By Paul Arfin (Colombia 1963-65) Self-Published, $17.99 356 pages 2009 paularfin@gmail.com La Ranfla and other New Mexico Stories By Martha Egan (Venezuela 1967-69) Papalote Press, $24.95 200 pages 2009 www.papalotepress.com Rock Worn by Water (Poems) By Florence Chard Dacey (Nigeria 1963-65) Plain View Press, $14.20 77 pages . . .

Americans Do Their Business Abroad The Peace Corps Latrine Reader (A collection of essays by RPCVs) edited by Jake Fawson (Gabon 2000–02) and Steve McNutt (Gabon 2000–02) Other Places Publishing December 2008 $16.95 Reviewed by Travis Leger (East Timor (2005–06) reviews the our site. I submitted to this book when Fawson and McNutt put out their request for stories. I had just returned from East Timor, though prematurely. We were the last group there before they evacuated the entire program. I submitted a story about our adopted dog when she was in heat and one of her lovers, Stubby.  And since the editors didn’t choose it I am going to use this opportunity to publish it here: Stubby We called the dog Stubby. I don’t even remember its real name. It was our neighbor’s and it barked at us incessantly.  We had just moved into the house, a small, two-bedroom . . .