Archive - June 2011

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RPCV Book on Ann Beattie's Book Shelf
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Talking with Marty Ganzglass
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A plethora of public places for Peace Corps papers, publications, people and stuff: Sorting it all out.
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Talking with Christopher Howard (Mongolia 1997) author of Tea of Ulaanbaatar
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New Legislation to Support PCVs: The Kate Puzey Peace Corps Safety and Security Act
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Review of Ruth Jacobson's memoir of Liberia
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Review of James P. Gray’s A Voter’s Handbook
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Gatsby Lives!
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Christina Shea (Hungary1990-92) Publishes Second Novel
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May 2011 Peace Corps Books
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Review of Michael MacLeod's memoir of Thailand
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In the Boston Globe! "Toughest job you'll never love
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Mark K. Shriver Inks Deal at Henry Holt & Company
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Two Dozen RPCVs Assist Washington-Area Peruvian Consulate
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Cynthia Morrison Phoel will be reading from Cold Snap: Bulgaria Stories in Bethesda

RPCV Book on Ann Beattie's Book Shelf

Reading the current issue of The New York Review of Books I spotted a long piece by Meghan O’Rourke on the new collection The New Yorker Stories by Ann Beattie. There was a photo of Ann in front of a shelf of books taken by Dominique Nabokov and it is clearly (by its disorganized self) a home book shelf. Scanning it closely to see what she might be reading, I spotted Peter Hessler’s (China 1996-98) latest book, Country Driving.  It is on a shelf of random books, with only a few title readable, Green Metropolis by  David Owen; Hatred of Capitalism by Chris Kraus and Sylvere Lotringer; and Michael Lewis’ The Big Short. There might have been other RPCV writers on Ann’s shelf, but lookikng closely, I couldn’t find any of my books. Oh, well!

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Talking with Marty Ganzglass

Marty Ganzglass’s (Somalia 1966-68) first novel, The Orange Tree, is the fifth book published by our imprint, Peace Corps Writers. It is a story of the unlikely friendship between an elderly Jewish lady and a young Somali nurse who cares for her. Recently Marty and I exchanged questions and answers about his writing and his long association with Somalia. • Marty, where did you serve as a Peace Corps Volunteer? I went to Somalia, along with my wife Evelyn, from 1966 to 1968. I was a lawyer and worked as legal advisor to the Somali National Police Force, replacing a Ford Foundation lawyer, who coincidentally, went on to become Police Commissioner of New York City (Robert J. McGuire). My assignment was quite unusual for a PCV. You have been connected with Somali for years, in what role? My post Peace Corps service connections with Somalia run deep. When we moved to . . .

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A plethora of public places for Peace Corps papers, publications, people and stuff: Sorting it all out.

    The Smithsonian, the Library of Congress, The National Archives and the JFK Presidential Library, as well as the Peace Corps Agency are all involved in preserving and presenting elements of the Peace Corps Experience. For anyone coming to DC for any of the celebrations or just curious, here is how it all sorts out. The Smithsonian and the Library of Congress are located in downtown Washington DC.  The National Archives stores Peace Corps records at its facility in College Park, Md.  The JFK Library is in Boston, MA.    All others institutions have information available online; but few actual pictures and papers have been digitalized. This means that to access the actual material one has to physically visit the facility or pay for copies. First, the Smithsonian has three different divisions involved with Peace Corps. The first and perhaps the most currently relevant is the Smithsonian Folklife Festival that . . .

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Talking with Christopher Howard (Mongolia 1997) author of Tea of Ulaanbaatar

In the mail, I received a message that began: As the minutes passed, the recycled air in the fuselage became like old breath. The planeload of Americans shot nervous looks at each other. Pinpricks of sweat forming on skin, cool but quickly warming. Charlotte joked that they had been abandoned, left to suffocate on the tarmac as a message to all foreigners. They crowded around the windows to look at their new home. The skyline was made of Soviet-built apartment compounds, sooty smokestacks. They saw a man from the ground crew idling on the tarmac. The man looked up, saw their faces pressed against the portholes. They slapped the glass and called to him. He smiled, revealing rotten teeth, but made no move to assist. The temperature soared. So begins National Magazine Award finalist Christopher Howard’s second novel, Tea of Ulaanbaatar: the story of disaffected Peace Corps Volunteer Warren, who . . .

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New Legislation to Support PCVs: The Kate Puzey Peace Corps Safety and Security Act

First Response Action is reporting that today, Thursday June 23rd at 2:15 p.m. EST, Congressman Poe and Senator Isakson will introduce legislation to support Volunteers who report or experience crime.  The legislation, The Kate Puzey Peace Corps Safety and Security Act, is the product of both Congressman Poe and Senator Isakson working closely with the Peace Corps, First Response Action and Kate’s Voice.  The Peace Corps has expressed “verbal support” for the bill and a press release is anticipated following the press conference on Thursday. You can find more information at the First Response Action blog, as well as,  information on the legislation: http://firstresponseaction.blogspot.com/2011/06/legislation-to-be-introduced-kate-puzey.html First Response Action Coalition www.firstresponseaction.org

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Review of Ruth Jacobson's memoir of Liberia

You Never Try, You Never Know: Six Year in Liberia by Ruth Jacobson (Liberia 1971-77) Court Street Press $18.95, paperback; $6.95 e-book 402 pages 2011 Reviewed by Geraldine Kennedy (Liberia 1962–64) RUTH JACOBSON AND HER HUSBAND HAROLD were in their 50s when they joined the Peace Corps in 1971. By then they were well experienced in their professions — she a nurse, he a mechanic. Their two daughters were grown. They were just the kind of people both the Peace Corps and host countries needed and valued. Well, it seems one of them was more valued than the other — we’ll get to that. You Never Try, You Never Know is a collection of letters Ruth wrote to family members, primarily to her mother, about the Jacobson’s six years in Liberia. It is a one-way correspondence to people she loved about a life she embraced. During their orientation and training . . .

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Review of James P. Gray’s A Voter’s Handbook

A Voter’s Handbook: Effective Solutions to America’s Problems by James P. Gray (Costa Rica 1966–68) The Forum Press 200 pages $17.95 2010 Reviewed by Ken Hill (Turkey 1965-67)   A VOTER’S HANDBOOK poses solutions for a myriad of public policy issues based on the assertion that government is the central problem which can be fixed by reducing government’s span and resources. Shrink government; grow entrepreneurship; expand “choice” and go back to “American Fundamentals,” says Mr. Gray. In the process, thankfully, he poses some practical approaches to a few of today’s most vexing issues; illegal immigration, for example, and treating the mentally ill who are not institutionalized.   A lawyer and judge, Mr. Gray has spent his life in the law, wandering occasionally into politics. A Republican candidate for Congress in 1998, he later ran as a Libertarian candidate in the 2004 California Senatorial race. In 2009, Mr. Gray retired after 25 years as . . .

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Gatsby Lives!

Gatsby Lives! You might have seen the piece written by Sara Rimer in the New York Times about high school students (mostly smart immigrant kids going to schools like Boston Latin) who are reading The Great Gatsby and connecting with Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel and the famous image at the end of the book where F. Scott writes about the “green light” that lured the Dutch settler to the new land. What struck me was not so much their interpretation of the famous ending of the book, but that Fitzgerald was even being read by this generation of first- and second-generation immigrants in America. As the TIMES article points out Gatsby, the novel, “had fallen into near obscurity” by the time Fitzgerald died in 1940. It came back into vogue in the 1950s and 1960s when a trade paperback version was reissued. But also because of the biography of Zelda Fitzgerald written . . .

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Christina Shea (Hungary1990-92) Publishes Second Novel

“I had just finished my MFA,” Christina wrote me recently. “I didn’t have a job. I was twenty-six years old, between boyfriends, and had no burning ideas for a novel. I was too old to live in my parents’ house, or so it seemed to me at the time. When I flash back, I realize I was quite conflicted about being a writer, despite what my heart had always told me. Perhaps because I was born in the JFK era, joining the Peace Corps seemed a perfect opportunity suddenly, no longer just a pipe dream. Just in making the decision to join, I felt a sense of urgency that was new to me.” Christina would go to Eastern Europe as a PCV, to Szeged, Hungary, a city close to the Romaian border. She writes that her experience over two years and subsequent years working in the region was an amazing education. . . .

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May 2011 Peace Corps Books

Maobadi (Photographs) by Kevin Bubriski (Nepal 1975–79) Himal Books $55.00 96 pages 2011 • The Orange Tree (Novel) by Martin R. Ganzglass (Somalia 1966–68) Peace Corps Writers $14.95 421 pages May 2011 • Rogue Elephants (Peace Corps novel) by Dan Grossman (Niger 1992–94) Lulu $22.98 299 pages 2010 • Soft Corps (Peace Corps poems) by Dan Grossman (Niger 1992–94) Lulu $11.95 71 pages 2010 • Feather: The Evolution of a Natural Miracle by Thor Hanson (Uganda 1993–95) Basic Books $25.99 338 pages 2011 • Years On: And Other Travel Essays by Lawrence F. Lihosit (Honduras 1975–77) iUniverse $18.95 211 pages 2011 • Soda Springs: Love, Sex and Civil Rights by Terry Marshall (Philippines 1965-68) Friesen Press Hardback $28.99; Paper $19.13; Kindle, $7.79 363 pages 2010 • Souled Out: A Memoir of War and Inner Peace by Michael S. Orban (Gabon 1976–78) Minute Man Press $17.00 200 pages February 2011 • . . .

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Review of Michael MacLeod's memoir of Thailand

Footprints in the Mud: A Peace Corps Volunteer’s 40+ Years of Ties to Thailand by Michael R. MacLeod (Thailand 1964–68) Third Place Press 296 pages $16.95 (to purchase contact: mikermacleod@comcast.net 2011 Reviewed by Lawrence F. Lihosit (Honduras 1975–77) THIS IS AN EXCELLENT BRIDGE between the original Peace Corps and a changing institution. Today, as the Peace Corps reevaluates itself, it is also a guiding handrail while crossing the fast moving river of doubt. The author served in Thailand from 1964 until 1968, entering months after JFK’s death and leaving months after the deaths of MLK and RFK. This was not just a tumultuous time at home with hundreds of cities in flames each summer, it was also a time of war abroad — very near MacLeod’s stilted wooden home in a far-off village. Originally, Peace Corps Volunteers were trained in the U.S. and shipped abroad to serve, much like the . . .

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In the Boston Globe! "Toughest job you'll never love

From the Boston Globe, June 12, 2011: Toughest job you’ll never love by Adam Langer Globe Correspondent (Luci Gutierrez for The Boston Globe) For the past 50 years, the Peace Corps has provided fertile material for a roster of impressive alumni, who include such authors as Kent Haruf, Bob Shacochis, and Paul Theroux. But I wouldn’t expect to see the name Christopher R. Howard, author of “Tea of Ulaanbaatar,” on a Peace Corps recruitment brochure any time soon. Using his brief stint as a volunteer in Mongolia during the late 1990s as his jumping-off point, Howard has produced a debut novel that won’t attract many socially conscious do-gooders to the Corps, but could well appeal to marginally employed slackers seeking to indulge in sex tourism and drug abuse. The Mongolia of [Christopher] Howard’s novel is a memorably bleak, fetid, and sinister place, a likely contender for the world’s least inviting . . .

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Mark K. Shriver Inks Deal at Henry Holt & Company

By Maryann Yin on June 10, 2011 2:52 PM from GalleyCat website Politician Mark K. Shriver has signed a deal with Henry Holt & Company to pen a tome about his father, sargent Robert “Sarge” Shriver. The book will be titled A Good Man: Rediscovering My Father, Sarge Shriver. Publisher Stephen Rubin acquired North American and audio rights in the deal. Executive editor Gillian Blake will edit the book. Here’s more from the press release: “After he eulogized him in January, Mark wanted to know what made his father ‘tick.’ He found the answers in the simple and poignant gestures over a lifetime – in the frequent notes and daily talks, trips and prayers together – all based in Sarge’s unwavering devotion to his family (he and Eunice were married for 56 years); his devout Catholicism, which included attending daily Mass; his innate sense of duty and service to his . . .

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Two Dozen RPCVs Assist Washington-Area Peruvian Consulate

Two Dozen RPCVs Assist Washington-Area Peruvian Consulate With June 5th Run-off Election for Peru’s Presidency Twelve Returned Peace Corps Volunteers who had served in Peru or who served as Volunteers elsewhere but also worked in Peru (albeit with other agencies), answered the call from Deputy Consul General Maria Eugenia Chiozza de Zela of the Peruvian Consulate to report to the Consulate’s Mid-Atlantic Regional polling place on Sunday, June 5th.  They were recruited to help with Peru’s Presidential run-off election.  Another dozen Spanish-speaking RPCVs from Metro Washington supplemented the first 12. The contingent was headed by RPCV Mike Wolfson (Peru, 1964-66) who made and adjusted assignments throughout the day.  Mike also walked the rounds to the six polling locations spread out over the sprawling campuses of a high school and an adjacent middle school, distributing water bottles to volunteers assisting voters while sweltering under the noonday sun.  Most RPCVs were stationed outside explaining to over 13,500 voters where to find their correct building, room, and . . .

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Cynthia Morrison Phoel will be reading from Cold Snap: Bulgaria Stories in Bethesda

Cynthia Morrison Phoel (Bulgaria 1994-96)  will be reading from Cold Snap: Bulgaria Stories at The Writer’s Center in Bethesda, MD, on Sunday, June 26, at 2:00 p.m. Of the book, Dallas Morning News contributor Anne Morris wrote: “It’s not unusual for a returning Peace Corps volunteer to write a book . . . Cynthia Morrison Phoel’s debut collection of six stories set in a Bulgarian village represents that kind of fiction at its best.” For more information, check out www.cynthiaphoel.com, or read the review of her great collection of stories on our site.

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