Archive - July 9, 2014

The first panel discussion I had for and about Peace Corps Writers was held in September 1986 under a huge tent on the Mall in Washington, D.C. at the 25th Anniversary of the Peace Corps.  That was twenty-eight years ago. At the time we had several dozen RPCV writers who had established international reputations with their writings. Among them were Paul Theroux (Malawi 1963-65) who by that summer of ’86 had already published 20 books, including Great Railway Bazaar, published in 1975. This book “reinvented” travel writing. In 1986 Richard Wiley (Korea 1967-69) published Soldiers in Hiding, winner of that year’s PEN/Faulkner Award; Bob Shacochis (Eastern Caribbean 1975-76) first collection of stories, Easy in the Islands, won the ’86 National Book Award for First Fiction. His second collection, The Next New World, was awarded the Prix de Rome from the Academy of Arts and Letters; Kathleen Coskran (Ethiopia 1965-67) won . . .