Archive - 2014

The weekend edition of the WSJ has an amusing Peace Corps story entitled, “My Mom the Adventurer. Myself, Not So Much” written by novelist Dina Nayer, who’s debut novel, A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea, was released last year. The article is about how Dina went to visit her mother, who at the age 56 was a PCV in a rural Thailand village outside of Chiang Mai back in 2012. Anyone who has had parents or friends, etc., visit their site knows what happens next. While Dina grew up in America from the age of 10, her mother had been a doctor, a volunteer health-care worker, a radio personality, a pastry chef, had served time in a Iranian jail, and then  reaching the U.S. she became a PCV. Daughter Dina went to Harvard. Well, Dina comes to visit to stay for a month in her mother’s thatch-roofed hut (she lasted . . .

To purchase any of these books from Amazon.com, click on the book cover, the bold book title, or the publishing format you would like — and Peace Corps Worldwide, an Amazon Associate, will receive a small remittance that will help support our annual writers awards. • A Hitch at the Fairmont (Mystery for children 8–12) by Jim Averbeck (Cameroon 1990–94), illustrated by Nick Bertozzi Atheneum Books for Young Readers June 2014 416 pages $16.99 (hardcover), $9.78 (Kindle) • Dancing with Gogos: A Peace Corps Memoir (Memoir) by Gary P. Cornelius (South Africa 2012–13) A Peace Corps Writers Book July 2014 282 pages $13.00 (paperback) • Crashing Through the Underbrush by Gary P. Cornelius (South Africa 2012–13) Lulu 2011 280 pages $15.00 (paperback) • The Harder Right: Stories of Conscience and Choice (Ethics) by Arthur B. Dobrin (Kenya 1965–67) Argo Navis 2013 204 pages $19.95 (paperback), $7.69 (Kindle) • The Consolations . . .

Mary-Ann Tirone Smith wrote the first novel by a PCV, Lament For A Silver-Eyed Woman, published by Morrow in 1987. She is also the author of a half dozen other novels, including The Book of Phoebe (1985) and a series of mystery novels. She has also written a Memoir, Girls of Tender Age which recounts a bittersweet portrait of growing up in 1950s Hartford, Connecticut when a serial pedophile kills her best friends. Mixed with that story, is her own young life story, including living with an autistic brother at a time before anyone knew what that meant. Now Mary-Ann has turned her talents as a novelist in a new direction with the publication is this novel The Honoured Guest: Anne Alger Craven, Witness to Sumter, in Her Words. Here’s a quick summary of that story: It is November, 1860. Anne Alger Craven leaves her home at Abingdon Square, Manhattan, . . .

Peace Corps Worldwide interviewed  Gary Cornelius about his Peace Corps service and his new book, Dancing with Gogos: A Peace Corps Memoir [Peace Corps Writers, 2014]. • Gary, where and when did you serve in the Peace Corps? In South Africa, from January 2012 to April 2013. I was “med-sepped” after about 14 months because I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disorder. The symptoms were relatively minor, and still are, so I’ve not started medication. My only treatment thus far is participation in a monthly support group for “early onset” Parkinson’s people. . What was your Peace Corp project assignment? I was a health Volunteer and trained as part of a group of 36 — 30 women and 6 men. The official title was HIV Outreach Worker and we were all part of the Peace Corps South Africa Community HIV/AIDS Outreach Project, or CHOP. There were about 100 health Volunteers in . . .

WASHINGTON, DC – Today, President Barack Obama announced his intent to nominate the following individuals to key Administration posts, among them: Carlos Torres, Nominee for Deputy Director, Peace Corps Carlos Torres is the Associate Director for Global Operations at the Peace Corps, a position he has held since 2013. He previously served as Regional Director for Inter-America and Pacific Region at the Peace Corps from 2010 to 2013. He was an independent consultant on international projects from 2000 to 2010. Mr. Torres founded CARANA Corporation in 1984 and served as its President and CEO until 2000. He was a private contractor for the U.S. Agency for International Development in Costa Rica from 1983 to 1984, and from 1976 to 1983 he worked in the Financial Industries Section of Arthur D. Little, Inc. Mr. Torres received a B.S. from Babson College and an M.S.M. from the Arthur D. Little Management Education . . .

After graduating from Bowdoin College in Maine, David Mather served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in southern Chile from 1968 to 1970. Profoundly influenced by his two years living and working in the campo [countryside], he bought a small piece of land in the woods of New Hampshire where he carved out a simple homestead and has lived a mile off grid for over forty years. He ultimately began and ran a successful specialty lumber company, but being self-employed, he was able to continue to travel a great deal, primarily to Third World Countries. Ten years ago, he began to downsize his business and, with more free time, wrote One For The Road which was published through Peace Corps Writers in 2011 (OnefortheRoad-Mather.com). About a PCV in Chile who falls in love with both the campo and a campesina, it is a mix of fact and fiction, and has been . . .

On October 7, Christopher R. Hill (Cameroon 1974–76) will publish Outpost: Life on the Frontlines of American Diplomacy (Simon & Schuster), a memoir of his years with the State Department. To quote the S&S website: Hill was on the front lines in the Balkans at the breakup of Yugoslavia. He takes us from one-on-one meetings with the dictator Milosevic, to Bosnia and Kosovo, to the Dayton conference, where a truce was brokered. Hill draws upon lessons learned as a Peace Corps volunteer in Cameroon early on in his career and details his prodigious experience as a US ambassador. He was the first American Ambassador to Macedonia; Ambassador to Poland, where he also served in the depth of the cold war; Ambassador to South Korea and chief disarmament negotiator in North Korea; and Hillary Clinton’s hand-picked Ambassador to Iraq. The book can be preorder now at Amazon.com. Outpost: Life on the . . .