Archive - 2014

Dancing with Gogos is the story of one man’s effort to make a difference in a collection of Zulu villages in rural South Africa, while fulfilling a life-long dream of serving in the United States Peace Corps. It’s the story of learning a new language, of immersing oneself in a different culture, of leaving a love 15,000 kilometers behind and discovering the unexpected chance to find a new one half a world away. It’s the story of South Africa’s history of apartheid and the effects of that sorry legacy on tens of millions of black Africans who to this day struggle to leave behind 500 years of oppression. • Gary Cornelius was nearly 55 when he realized that he was weeks away from being the age at which Oregon public employees could retire early and get a modest pension, so the month he turned 55 he retired  — after a . . .

Long Ago And Far Away by John Coyne (Ethiopia 1962–64) A Peace Corps Writers Book 342 pages July 2014 $18.00 (paperback); $9.99 (Kindle) Reviewed by Kathleen Croskran (Ethiopia 1965–67) Long Ago and Far Away by John Coyne, an ambitious novel spanning time and place, connects the disparate worlds of Parker Bishop, a former CIA agent who retreated to safety and anonymity as a proprietor of a second hand book store in Westchester County, New York — thus masking his undercover past with respectability that included a beloved wife and two daughters. Bishop’s wife Sara has just died of cancer when the great love of his youth, the beautiful Irish McCann, reappears unexpectedly, first in the form of her travel guide to Ethiopia, and eventually in person. Irish also has cancer, but is not dying, not yet, not until she — and Parker Bishop — confront their murky history and forty-year-old . . .

A Writer Writes How I Was Bombed Out of Sri Lanka And Other Career Changes Sri Lanka: The author and his students (Spring 1998). I spent a year as a Peace Corps Volunteer teacher in Kandy, Sri Lanka. While there, a suicide bomber blew himself up close to my home, which led to the evacuation of the Volunteers from the country. Well, evacuation may be too strong a word, but a security officer flew over from Washington, DC to evaluate the situation and he determined that the best thing to do was send the Volunteers home. I returned home to New York in April 1998, after a three-day layover in Bangkok, just in time to re-enroll in the summer semester at Fordham University, from which I had taken a leave of absence to teach overseas. I only had one course left before having to take my comprehensive exams and graduating . . .

Peace Corps writer Leita Kaldi (Senegal 1993-96) wrote: I haven’t seen anything about Ismael Beah, author of A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, who I was listening to while was driving. He was being interviewed on NPR last week about the Africa Summit in Washington DC. He had very astute things to say about American investment vs. exploitation in Africa. And then he added that the best foreign policy the U.S. ever had was Peace Corps! The first white person he’d ever seen appeared in his village and taught him English. I was so proud I nearly ran off the road. That would have been last Wednesday on, I think “The Take Away” or “The World.” I kind of expected it to be reported by somebody else, because we’re all such avid NPR listeners.

The Peace Corps Writers  Publisher’s Special Book Award recognizes outstanding publications from the Peace Corps community, and The Power of Latino Leadership: Culture, Inclusion, and Contribution by Juana Bordas (Chile 1964–66) is such a book. Recently Juana’s book also received The Nautilus Book Award that recognizes “better books for a better world.” The Nautilus Award was established in 1998 and is considered a “major” book award. CONGRATULATIONS to Juana Bordas for winning the  2014 Peace Corps Writers Publisher’s Special Award for the best book published in 2013.  Juana receives a small cash award, and a certificate. A long-time Latina leader, Juana is a founder of Denver’s Mi Casa Resource Center and was the first President of the National Hispana Leadership Institute. In 2009, she was named Colorado Unique Woman of the Year by the Denver Post and the Colorado Women’s Foundation. The book highlights Bordas’ own experiences and includes the voices of 9 . . .

In 1997, the first annual award for an outstanding poetry book by a Peace Corps writer was presented. • CONGRATULATIONS to Ben Berman (Zimbabwe 1998–2000) for winning the Peace Corps Writers 2014 Best Book of Poetry for his collection  Strange Borderlands published in 2013.  Ben will receive a small cash award and a certificate. John Coyne comments — As editor of Peace Corps Worldwide, several times a week I received books in the mail from RPCV writers — mostly I knew they are coming as I had been forewarned by the author. Then in early 2013 I received one via Amazon.com that came to me without notice — no fanfare, I hadn’t requested it. It was a collection of poems from a guy named Ben Berman. Never heard of him. The jacket cover with its bright colors suggested Africa. When I looked closer I saw that it was an image . . .

The Award for Best Book of Photography was first presented in 2009. • CONGRATULATIONS to Douglas Cruickshank (Uganda 2009–12) for winning the Peace Corps Writers 2014 Best Book of Photography for his photography and his essays for Somehow published in 2013.  Douglas will receive a small cash award and a certificate. Douglas Cruickshank has written journalism, travel stories, profiles, essays and opinion pieces for many magazines, newspapers and web sites and has worked in radio, television and film-making. He has been a photographer for more than four decades, a columnist and editor for Salon.com, and has edited numerous books. The following account, drawn from the introduction to Somehow: Living on Uganda Time, tells of how he came to join the Peace Corps, and his first impressions of Uganda. In early 2008 I started doing something. At first, I didn’t know exactly what I was doing or why I was doing . . .

Peace Corps Writers began presenting awards for Best Children’s Book in 2001. • CONGRATULATIONS to Jim Averbeck for winning the 2014 Peace Corps Writers Best Book for Children award for his charming story The Market Bowl that he both wrote and illustrated. The Market Bowl is set in Cameroon and was published in 2013. Jim will receive a small cash award, and a certificate. Peace Corps Writers asked Jim a few questions about the Peace Corps, Cameroon, and writing books for children (and their parents) that he has agreed to share with us. .Why the Peace Corps? When I graduated from college I felt my life was becoming consumed with chasing money, instead of learning and growing. So when a friend jokingly told me I should join the Peace Corps, I explored the possibility. And the more I looked at it, the more I wanted to do it. It seemed . . .

THE PEACE CORPS EXPERIENCE AWARD was initiated in 1992. It is presented annually to a Peace Corps Volunteer or staff member, past or present for the best depiction of life in the Peace Corps. It can be a personal essay, story, novella, poem, letter, cartoon, song or memoir. The subject matter can be any aspect of the Peace Corps experience — daily life, assignment, travel, host country nationals, other Volunteers, readjustment. In 1997, this award was renamed to honor Moritz Thomsen (Ecuador 1965—67) whose Living Poor has been widely cited as an outstanding telling of the essence of the Peace Corps experience. • CONGRATULATIONS to Eleanor Stanford (Cape Verde 1998–2000) for winning the  2014 Moritz Thomsen Peace Corps Experience Award for her memoir História, História: Two Years in the Cape Verde Islands. Eleanor will receive a small cash award, and a certificate. This is the second Peace Corps Writers Award . . .

To purchase any of these books from Amazon.com, click on the book cover, the bold book title, or the format you would like — and Peace Corps Worldwide, an Amazon Associate, will receive a small remittance that will help support our annual writers awards. • Long Ago and Far Away (novel) by John Coyne (Ethiopia 1962–64) A Peace Corps Writers Book 342 pages July 2014 $18.00 (paperback), $9.99 (Kindle) • Letters from Yemen (Peace Corps letters) by Mary Lou Currier (Yemen 1991–94) CreateSpace 158 pages June 2014 $21.00 (paperback) • Church of the Adagio: Poems by Philip Dacey (Nigeria 1963–65) Rain Mountian Press 95 pages July 2014 $15.00 (paperback) • Dead Not Dead (mystery) by John Charles Miller (Dominican Republic 1962–64) CreateSpace 150 pages 2013 $9.99 (paperback), $2.99 (Kindle) • The Italian Letter (non-fiction) by Peter Eisner and Knut Royce (Ethiopia 1962–64) Amazon Digital July 2014 288 print pages $5.95 . . .

FIRST GIVEN IN 1990, the Paul Cowan Non-Fiction Award was named to honor Paul Cowan, a Peace Corps Volunteer who served in Ecuador from 1966 to 1967. Cowan wrote  The Making of An Un-American about his experiences as a Volunteer in Latin America in the ’60s. A longtime activist and political writer for The Village Voice, Cowan died of leukemia in 1988. • CONGRATULATIONS to Laurence Leamer for winning the 2014 Paul Cowan Non-Fiction Award from Peace Corps Writers for his legal thriller that tells the story of a coal giant CEO who sets out to destroy a small mine owner in West Virginia, The Price of Justice: A True Story of Greed and Corruption published in 2013. Larry receives a small cash award, and a certificate. . Review of The Price of Justice first published in Peace Corps Writers on April 17, 2013 The Price of Justice: A True . . .

. THE MARIA THOMAS FICTION AWARD is named after the novelist Maria Thomas [Roberta Worrick (Ethiopia 1971–73)] who was the author of a well-reviewed novel Antonia Saw the Oryx First,  and two collections of short stories, Come to Africa and Save Your Marriage: And Other Stories and African Visas: A Novella and Stories, all set in Africa. Roberta lost her life in August, 1989, while working in Ethiopia for a relief agency. She went down in the plane crash that also  killed her husband, Thomas Worrick (Ethiopia 1971–73), and Congressman Mickey Leland of Texas. • CONGRATULATIONS to Dan Close (Ethiopia 1966–68) for winning the 2014 Maria Thomas Fiction Award from Peace Corps Writers for his historical novel set in Ethiopia in 1896, The Glory of the Kings, published in 2013. Dan receives a small cash award, and a certificate. . Review of The Glory of the Kings first published in . . .

Rush of Shadows by Catherine [Fitch] Bell (Brazil 1966–68) was chosen by the Washington Writers Publishing House (WWPH) as the fiction book it will published in 2014. The WWPH sponsors an annual competition for writers living in the Washington-Baltimore area working in fiction and poetry. The winning works in these two categories comprise the pair of books that WWPH publishes each year. “Rush of Shadows evokes the clash between natives and settlers in 19th century California through the friendship of two women — one white, one Indian. Tough-minded and lyrical, Rush of Shadows brings to life the human dimensions of a tragic conflict which corrupted the winners and left the losers to haunt the landscape as shadows.” The official publication date for Rush of Shadows is October 15th, however it currently can be purchased at Amazon. Rush of Shadows (historical fiction) by Catherine Bell (Brazil 1966-68) Washington Writers Publishing House . . .