Archive - 2011

True to the Peace Corps The corps’ celebrity and size may have diminished, but its longevity is a testament to its importance. By Stanley Meisler In some ways, the Peace Corps, which celebrates its 50th anniversary Tuesday, is a shadow of what it once was. It had so much pizzazz in the early days that newspapers proclaimed the names of new volunteers as if they had just won Guggenheim fellowships. Now, the number of volunteers – 8,655 – is about half of what it was at its highest in 1966, and not everyone knows the Peace Corps still exists. The first director – the irrepressible, inspiring Sargent Shriver, who put the program together in six months – made the cover of Time in 1963. The current director – Aaron Williams, a former volunteer with decades of experience in international development – barely gets his name in the papers. At a . . .

latimes.com Op-Ed A Peace Corps volunteer’s journey The Peace Corps set us on a path to a more fulfilling and interesting life. By Maureen Orth February 25, 2011 Twenty years ago I was riding down a dusty road in rural Argentina gabbing in Spanish with a local journalist when suddenly a wave of nostalgia hit me, and I realized why I felt so happy: It was just like being in the Peace Corps again. At the time, I was doing investigative reporting on Argentina’s flamboyant then-President Carlos Menem, but the discussion of local politics and poverty and figuring out how to get the information I wanted was pure Peace Corps. When I served in the 1960s in Medellin, Colombia, as a community development volunteer, I had no thought of becoming a journalist. After my Peace Corps stint, I enrolled in graduate courses in Latin American studies. But they seemed so . . .

The Peace Corps at 50 By Steven V. Roberts WHEN THE WORLD CALLS The Inside Story of the Peace Corps and Its First Fifty Years By Stanley Meisler Beacon. 272 pp. $26.95 In 2008 Christiane Amanpour illustrated America’s declining role in the world by telling a foreign policy conference, “There wasa Peace Corps.” After the session a former volunteer named Jon Keeton angrily corrected CNN’s chief foreign correspondent: “There still is a Peace Corps.” As author Stanley Meisler recalls, “Amanpour blushed but pointed out that there must be something wrong if someone like herself did not realize the Peace Corps still existed.” The Peace Corps is a forgotten player today, riding the far end of the government’s bench and seldom getting into a game. Some years ago a State Department document referred to it as the “Peach Corps” and no one caught the error. But the Corps still sent 7,671 . . .

A Matrix of Angels by Christopher Conlon (Botswana 1988-90) Creative Guy Publishing $12.95 245 pages 2010 Reviewed by Leita Kaldi Davis (Senegal 1993-96) A Matrix of Angels is a literary thriller by Christopher Conlon, Bram Stoker Award winner and acclaimed author in the world of horror fiction. I abhor horror stories. But I actually didn’t realize I was reading one until gory scenes surfaced of a serial killer who tortured three teen-age girls in his basement, murdering them by drilling holes in their heads and leaving their remains in a river bed. Hence, the psycho’s label of “river-bed killer.” I was lured into the story by Conlon’s vivid account of the intense friendship between two girls, Frances Pastun and Lucy Sparrow, respectively 12 and “almost 13”. Frances was sent away by drug addicted parents to live with an aunt and uncle, where she meets Lucy, who lives across the street. . . .

Man Facing West (Stories) by Don Gayton (Colombia 1966-68) Thistledown Press $17.95 246 pages September 2010 Reviewed by Tom Hebert (Nigeria 1962-64) Don Gayton, or anyone who has lived on the Seattle —  or west — side of the Cascade Mountains, speaks of the vast, often high, mostly dry Columbia plateau — that is the remainder of Washington — as “East of the Mountains.” Real Washingtonians — not the usual run of umbrella Seattleites — also speak of the Columbia plateau as “the Okanogan.” This large farming and ranching region east of the mountains brims with wheat and meat, with a river that flows south to the Columbia, a valley, a plateau, sometimes a lake,  huge irrigated apple orchards — now laced with vineyards, a geographic assembly that runs headlong into Canada’s central British Columbia where there is a spelling change at the 49° parallel, switching from the American Okanogan . . .

Jason Sanford (Thailand 1994-96) served with his wife and then came home to write short stories, essays and articles. A lot of his short stories have been published in the British SF magazine Interzone, which devoted a special issue to his fiction in December 2010. He has also been published in Year’s Best SF 14 , Analog: Science Fiction and Fact, Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show, Tales of the Unanticipated, The Mississippi Review, Diagram, Pindeldyboz, and other places. In 2009 he was a finalist for the 2009 Nebula Award for Best Novella, and won both the 2008 and 2009 Interzone Readers’ Polls. He also received a Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowship. In 2001 he co-founded the literary journal storySouth, through which he runs the annual Million Writers Award for best online fiction. And that is what I am writing you about! The storySouth Million Writers Award is now open. For more information, including how to . . .

I mentioned Ann Neelon (Senegal 1978-79) last week and her publication, New Madrid, when I wrote about the AWP Conference in Washington, D.C. I want to go back to Ann and her literary magazine as there are two more connections to the Peace Corps. (By the way, New Madrid(pronounced New Mad-drid) takes it name from the New Madrid seismic zone, which falls within the central Mississippi Valley and extends through western Kentucky. Between 1811 and 1812, four earthquakes with magnitudes greater than 7.0 struck this region, changing the course of the Mississippi River, creating Reelfoot Lake in Tennessee and ringing church bells as far away as Boston.)   That all said, Ann invites submissions of poetry, fiction and creative non-fiction for her literary journal. Your work should be sent directly (and only online) to the Submission Manager. Go to their website: www.newmadridjournal.org for details. In the issue of New Madrid (Winter 2010) the theme is: The Dynamics . . .

A School For Others; The History of the Belize High School of Agriculture George LeBard (Belize 1981-86) Xlibris $19.99 269 pages 2010 Reviewed by Lawrence F. Lihosit (Honduras 1975-77) MORE THAN a Peace Corps experience memoir, this is a story of redemption. Very few people honestly confront personal weakness and fewer change. I do not refer to the new found frugality we all learn as Volunteers but a physical and mental change. LeBard explains his sordid past, accepts full responsibility and then describes his own long journey towards change. His Peace Corps experience lasted longer than most for he served for five years. The fruits of his labor are quite extraordinary, not only for his host community but for him personally. In 1981, LeBard reported as a thin thirty-one year old. In the book, he admits that prior to the Peace Corps his “life consisted of drinking, drugs and one-night . . .

Cynthia Morrison Phoel (Bulgaria 1994-96) is the author of Cold Snap: Bulgaria Stories and she will be reading in New York City in March. If you can, see her on the 8th of March at 7:30 p.m. at the famous McNally Jackson Books store, 52 Prince Street. In May, on Sunday the 15th, at 7 p.m. Cindy will return to New York (this time the East Village) and appear at Sunday Salon 43 East 7th between 2nd and 3rd Avenue. The co-founder of this amazing showcase for writers is RPCV Nita Niveno (Cameroon 1988–90). Paul Theroux (Malawi 1963–65) writes of Cynthia’ s book: “I am greatly impressed with Cold Snap, a look at Bulgarian Life — family life, school life, frustration, even passion and desire. Cynthia Phoel writes from inside this culture, convincingly and with real insight.” And reviewer Dona Seaman (has in part) this to say: Phoel’s first collection of stories and . . .

YOU MIGHT HAVE SEEN Shelton Johnson prominently featured in the Ken Burns documentary film on our National Parks. What you might not have known is that Shelton Johnson served with the Peace Corps in Liberia in 1982–83, and that he is the author of Gloryland, a novel that is quietly gaining a lot of attention. Dick Joyce (Philippines 1962–64) who coordinates the RPCV group in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and is a former graduate school classmate of mine, brought it to my attention. The novel was published by Sierra Club Books in 2009 and we’ll be reviewing it shortly on our site. Shelton Johnson is from Detroit, Michigan and has worked for the National Park Service since 1987. Currently he is a ranger in Yosemite, and lives with his wife and son just outside the Park. He has presented his original living-history program about a buffalo soldier as venues around the country. Shelton is also a helluva writer. . . .