Archive - 2015

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 the site and the annual Peace Corps Writers awards. • The Color of a Lion’s Eye: Memories of Africa by Jane F. Bonin (APCD/Malawi, CD/Niger 1994–99) Border Press Books July 2015, 125 pages $15.00 (paperback) . • Don’t Get Too Comfortable by Robert Emmet Buckley Jr.  (Micronesia 1968–70) Historical Inspitational Memoir May 2015 325 pages $9.99 (Kindle) . • Letters from Nigeria: Experiences of a Peace Corps Volunteer before and during the Nigerian Civil War by James King (Nigeria 1966–67), edited by Eileen M. Jones (James’s sister) Booktango 2013 335 pages $4.99 (Kindle) • Ad Nauseam: How Advertising And Public Relations Changed Everything by Jeff  Koob (Jamaica 1991–93) iUniverse . . .

“Every story has a storyteller.” – John Coyne For this lesson I will discusses: Point of view Scenes Chapters Point of View William Faulkner called “point of view” the source of a story. Point of view is a term that refers to the relationships between the storyteller, the story, and the reader. We can tell our stories from different points of view: – First-person – Third-person (On occasion you may find stories, usually short stories that are told from the second-person, “you,” which is unusual and extremely difficult to pull off as a narrative.) A story being told in the third-person point of view can be done in two ways: 1. The Omniscient Storyteller goes everywhere, knows everything, can read the minds of the characters, and comments when he or she wants. 2. The opposite of the Omniscient Storyteller is the Direct Observer. The Direct Observer has no memory of . . .

The current issue of The New Yorker carries a “Letter from Egypt” by Peter Heller (China 1996-98) It begins…. The city of Asyut sits in the heart of Upper Egypt, at a crescent-shaped bend in the Nile River, where the western bank is home to a university, a train station, approximately four hundred thousand people, and three shops in which Chinese migrants sell racy lingerie to locals. These shops are not hard to find. The first time I visited Asyut, I hailed a cab at the entrance of the city and asked the driver if he knew of any Chinese people in town. Without hesitation, he drove along the Nile Corniche, turned through a series of alleyways, and pointed to a sign that said, in Arabic, “Chinese Lingerie.” The two other shops, China Star and Noma China, are less than a block away. All three are owned by natives of . . .

Ron Singer’s interest in Africa  began when he was a PCV in Nigeria between 1964 and 1967. After obtaining a Ph.D. in English from the University of Chicago in 1976, he taught until 2008. He is the author of seven previous books, as well as hundreds of poems, stories and articles, many of them about Africa. Uhuru Revisited, that was published in February of this year, is the product of sojourns he made to  six African countries during 2010 and 2011. The following are excerpts from an interview with Ron, conducted by Laurel Johnson for the Midwest Book Review that was published in February 2014, and are re-printed by permission of the interviewer. • MBR: Your latest book is Uhuru Revisited: Interviews with African Pro-Democratic Leaders. What was the genesis of the book, and what process did you use to create this complex mix of background research, networking, travel, interviewing, . . .

“I’m not sure I understand the creative process. I’ve never given much attention to it. I understand how I work, but I really don’t know what psychological things happen in the creative process, or why someone creates.” Paddy Chayefsky, screenwriter Yesterday I discussed two of the components that contribute to an author’s voice: style and tone. I will discuss two others today – focus and creativity. FOCUS is what you select to write about. It is the piece of clothing that demands the most attention – a bright yellow dress, a smart suit. CREATIVITY is the choice of what details and examples you use in your writing. You might say it is the choice of which accessories to add to your outfit – a pair of earrings, a certain of tie. Focus All (or most) Peace Corps books are creative non-fiction, all based on historical facts within your own experiences. . . .

Rejection slip received by Rudyard Kipling: I’m sorry, Mr. Kipling, but you just don’t know how to use the English language.” from Rotten Rejections: A Literary Companion edited by Andre Bernard Finding Your Voice You have begun your book. You have decided on how you want to structure the book. Now you have to find your voice. For years the voice of nonfiction was an impersonal voice, attracting no attention. Fiction had a “voice” but not nonfiction. It wasn’t until the 1960s when Tom Wolfe, Gay Talese, and a half dozen others gave birth to The New Journalism that voice began to receive attention in nonfiction. Generally what this meant was subjective nonfiction, nonfiction with an attitude, or subjective reporting. The New Journalism, coming of age with the “Me Generation,” morphed into what we have today, Creative Nonfiction. In Creative Nonfiction, we have the writer’s voice, a human touch in . . .

“Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original, and the part is that is original is not good.” Samuel Johnson Well, we’re RPCV writers and we are both good and original! One of the great gifts of the Peace Corps is that everyone’s experience is so special and individual. No matter when a person served in the Peace Corps, what year or where, the Volunteer comes home from the tour thinking “this is the Peace Corps!” and she or he is right. No two experiences are the same and, therefore, whatever you write is original. Now you have to make the telling of your story original. Planning and Writing Your Book In this lesson, I want to cover the structure of your book and look at three examples: Sarah Erdman (Cote D’Ivorie 1998-2000), Peter Hessler (China 1996-98) and Mike Tidwell (Zaire 1985-87). . . .

Haile Selassie’s Ethiopia – Revisited photos by Hoyt A. Smith (Ethiopia 1962–65) and narration by Theodore Vestal (Associate Director PC/Ethiopia 1964–66) Self-published 2014 $45.00 (Click for more information and to order) Reviewed by Wayne Kessler (Ethiopia 1964–66) • Hey RPCV! Go back to your country of service: see the changes, renew friendships, take photos and bring them back home. This is what Hoyt Smith’s  Haile Selassie’s Ethiopia — Revisited encourages us to do. You never know, returning could lead to more service and adventures. Hoyt’s photographs, along with Ted Vestal’s few words, present us with a unique book of 100 pages of historical photos from the 1960s combined with 95 pages of photos taken 50 years later. We can see what has changed and what hasn’t. The book will be most enjoyed by people who have lived in or traveled extensively in Ethiopia. Also, it will be of great interest . . .

For the next two week, Monday through Friday, I will give you suggestions on how to write your Peace Corps Book. If you wish, you can also put into the ‘Comment’ Section of the blog the first paragraph, page or chapter of your book and I’ll comment on it, as will, I hope, other RPCVs. This class (I hope) will get you started writing your novel or memoirs on your Peace Corps experience. In this first lesson, I am going to focus on two topics: Becoming a Writer and Getting Started. As Fran Lebowitz, author o Metropolitan Life once said, It’s really scary just getting to the desk. My mouth gets dry, my heart beats fast. I react psychologically the way other people react when the plane loses an engine. . Jacques Barzun who taught at Columbia University and wrote wonderful books, wrote this about becoming a writer: Convince yourself . . .

Never Forgotten: Teaching in Rebellious Eritrea 1965–1967 & Returning After 35 Years by Paul E. Huntsberger (Ethiopia 1965–67) LifeRichPublishing October 2014 192 pages $14.99 (paperback) Reviewed by Martin Ganzglass (Somalia 1966–68) • Paul Huntsberger’s Never Forgotten- Teaching in Rebellious Eritrea 1965-1967 & Returning After 35 Years is a Peace Corps memoir written from a unique perspective. Not many Volunteers served in a province of their host country that later became an independent nation. Huntsberger was a middle school teacher from 1965 to 1967, in the small village of Saganeiti, about 40 miles south of Asmara, the capital of the province of Eritrea, then part of Ethiopia. The armed Eritrean struggle for independence began in 1962, the year Emperor Haile Selassie nullified the federal arrangement established by a United Nations Resolution, disbanded the Eritrean parliament and fully annexed Eritrea. The war went on for thirty years, ending in a military victory . . .

A former English teacher and newspaper and magazine journalist, most recently for 22 years at People Ron Arias has published the following books: The Road To Tamazunchale, a novel nominated for a National Book Award; Five Against the Sea, a true survival saga; Healing from the Heart, with Dr. Mehmet Oz; Moving Target: A Memoir of Pursuit, and White’s Rules:Saving Our Youth, One Kid At A Time, with Paul D. White. Most recently he publish a memoir entitled, My Life as a Pencil. An amateur potter, he now lives with his wife Joan in Hermosa Beach, California. This  article appeared recently in Southbay Magazine. Southbay Magazine by Kelly Dawson A soft melody of classical music is playing when Ron Arias enters his studio, lifting a curtain that divides the workspace from the rest of the dark garage. A single light shines above the small area and casts a warm glow on the clay-crusted potter’s wheel, desk and . . .

Posted by John Coyne on Monday, March 2nd 2009 I was struck the other day when I got an email from an RPCV who wanted to know if I was the “most famous” of all the Peace Corps writer. Hello? “Hardly,” I wrote back. I’m not even on that list of writers. So, just in case people don’t know the many, many fine, award-winning writers who served in the Peace Corps, here is a list of the talented and best known of the corps of writer — and one of their books — who once served as Volunteers. And last but not least — Besides RPCVs, a number of members of the staff of the Peace Corps have written major novels and works of non-fiction. Among them: The writers from the Peace Corps also have won almost every major prize of literature, including the National Book Award (Norm Rush & Bob . . .

Clifford Garstang (Korea  1976-77 ) has been selected by The Indianapolis Public Library Foundation as an Emerging Author finalist for the 2015 Eugene & Marilyn Glick Indiana Authors Award. The goal of the Eugene & Marilyn Glick Indiana Authors Award is to elevate the written arts in Indiana, inspiring Hoosiers’ love of reading and attracting greater attention to “home-grown” literary greats. The Award celebrates authors whose quality work has made, or has the potential to make, a lasting public impact. Clifford Garstang is the author of What the Zhang Boys Know, which won the 2013 Library of Virginia Award for Fiction, and the prize-winning short story collection In an Uncharted Country. He is the editor of an anthology, Everywhere Stories: Short Fiction from a Small Planet, a finalist for the International Book Award, and Prime Number Magazine, an online quarterly. He is also the author of the popular literary blog Perpetual . . .

Talking to Phillip Margolin Among famous and successful RPCV writers no one has a wider readership and has been more financially successful than mystery writer Phillip Margolin (Liberia 1965-67) who came home from Africa to attend New York University School of Law, then found his way to Portland, Oregon where from 1972 to 1996 he was in private practice specializing in criminal defense at the trial and appellate levels. Since 1996, however, Margolin has been writing full-time. The majority of his novels have been New York Times bestsellers. In addition to all this, his daughter grew up to become a Peace Corps Volunteer. After turning this site’s spotlight on Phillip Margolin recently, I spoke to him about his career and his bestselling novels, how he writes, and why. • Phillip, tell us something about yourself. Well, I grew up in New York City and Levittown, New York.  I graduated from . . .