June 13, 2010 – Peace Corps Worldwide

Conlon reviews The Gardener by S.A. Bodeen

Jun 13 2010

Christopher Conlon is a writer of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, and an editor. His first book of verse, Gilbert and Garbo in Love, won the 2004 Peace Corps Writers Prize for Best Poetry Book, while his Midnight on Mourn Street was a finalist for the Horror Writers Association’s 2008 Bram Stoker Award in the category of 1st Novel. As an editor, Conlon won the 2009 Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in an Anthology for his Richard Matheson tribute volume, He Is Legend, which is being reprinted by Tor in trade hardcover this September. Visit him online at ChristopherConlon.com. • The Gardener (Young Adult) by S.A. Bodeen (Tanzania 1989-90) [Stephanie Stuve-Bodeen] Feiwel and Friends May 2010 233 pages $16.99 Reviewed by Christopher Conlon (Botswana 1988-90) WHAT IS “Young Adult” literature, anyway? Many think of Young Adult books simply as novels for kids, like the old “Juvenile” category some of us oldsters . . .

Whatever Happened to Mr. Steve?

Jun 13 2010

Most PCVs are thrown into classrooms as teachers to learn on the job, and surprisingly some Volunteers are very good. In my years as an Associate Peace Corps director (APCD) in Ethiopia I saw more than a few PCVs become great teachers. But there were also those who were painful to watch from the back of the room. Still, you never know how they might influence kids. We had a PCV teacher in Ethiopia who was stationed in a village called Debark. It was a one-man town on the Gondar road, isolated from other Volunteers and up high at the foothills of the rough Simian Mountains, north of Lake Tana, north of Gondar. What this PCV liked to do most was roam these hills above the village and often, when I arrived for a staff visit, I would find him gone off camping in the mountains. And when he was . . .

Writers From the Peace Corps: The Lost Generation, Part Seven

Jun 13 2010

Writing from experience Anyone who has read Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, e. e. cummings, Malcolm Cowley, or John Dos Passos can see how they used the experience of living in France, England, and Spain as subject matter. In much the same way, Paul Theroux, Moritz Thomsen, Maria Thomas, Eileen Drew, Richard Wiley, P.F. Kluge, Bob Shacochis, Norm Rush, Marnie Mueller, Peter Hessler, George Packer, Kathleen Coskran, Mark Brazaitis, Mary-Ann Tirone Smith, Eileen Drew, Chris Conlon, Sandra Meek, Tom Hazuka, Jeanne D’Haem, Joseph Monninger, Leonard Levitt, Margaret Szumowski, Ann Neelon, Roland Merullo, Charles Larson, Susan Rich, Mike Tidwell, Susanna Herrera, Peter Chilson, Geraldine Kennedy, Rob Davidson, and hundreds of other Peace Corps writers have used Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America, Asia, and Eastern Europe in their short stories, novels, poetry, and non-fiction. While writing about the developing world and emerging democracies, they have broadened the landscape of American . . .

Archive - June 13, 2010