Archive - 2016

By Barbara Marshall – Palm Beach Post Staff Writer  Sunday September 18 Stop us if this sounds familiar: Vincent Victor, a pugnacious businessman, playboy and bombastic developer of discount shopping malls called “Victor’s Golden Castle” creates a Miss Universe-like pageant called The Great American Breast Contest which leads to a starring role in a reality TV show called The Vigilantes, which he parlays into a run at the presidency. If that reminds you of Donald Trump, it’s meant to, says author and historian Laurence Leamer, author of “The President’s Butler,” a new satiric novel. Related by Victor’s butler, Billy Baxter, the story portrays Victor as a proudly anti-intellectual attention junkie who spews conspiracy theories and Twitter put-downs. After pummeling his mainstream political opponents to grab the GOP nomination for president, he faces a Democratic opponent he belittles as Blundering Belinda Ball. Any doubts about the object of Leamer’s lampooning are . . .

(Thanks to the ‘heads up’ from Barry Hillenbrand (Ethiopia 1963-65) In the Philippines, Jim Turner’s heartbroken ‘hobbits’ mourn the loss of their patron by William Branigin (c) 2016, The Washington Post. All over Manila, the “little people” are in mourning. Jim Turner (Philippines 1961-63), a former Peace Corps volunteer from Iowa who established the renowned Hobbit House, died on Steptember 8, 2016, at 77 of heart and lung ailments, leaving generations of Philippine dwarfs bereft. The Hobbit House was founded in 1973 as a theme bar and restaurant – a tribute of sorts to Turner’s favorite author, J.R.R. Tolkien – and it soon became a haven for the dwarfs he rescued from the capital’s streets and from carnivals and variety shows that demeaned them. He employed dwarfs as waiters, bartenders, cashiers, entertainers, even bouncers. Eventually, they became managers and owners. Over the years, children and grandchildren of the original staff . . .

  On Wednesday, September 21st from 3:15–4:15 pm and then repeated from 4:30 pm–5:30 pm, RPCV authors whose books were influenced by their Peace Corps experience and have been published by the Peace Corps Writers imprint, will participate in panels talking about writing and producing their books. The panels will be moderated by Marian Haley Beil. The panelists are: Emily Creigh (Paraguay 1975–77), who co-authored with and Dr. Martin Amada, Journey to the Heart of the Condor: Love, Loss and Survival in a South American Dictatorship. (Emily will participate only in the second panel.) Kay Gillies Dixon (Colombia 1962—64), author of the the memoir Wanderlust Satisfied Marty Ganzglass (Somalia 1966–68), author of The Orange Tree, a novel set in Somalia, and Somalia – a collection of short fiction. (Marty will participate only in the first panel.) Jay Hersch (Colombia 1964–66), whose Peace Corps memoir is Time Passages Catherine Onyemelukwe (Nigeria 1962–64), whose memoir is Nigeria Revisited: My Life and Loves Abroad. The panels will be presented at: Floyd Heck . . .

Marvin Center Room 407: Wednesday!, September 21, 2016 3:15 – 4:15 pm: Stories of Peace: Panel Discussion with Marian Haley Beil and Published Peace Corps Authors 4:30 pm – 5:30 pm: Stories of Peace: Panel Discussion with Marian Haley Beil and Published Peace Corps Authors   Marvin Center Room 403 3:15 – 4:15 pm: Writing Your Peace Corps Story Workshop with John Coyne 4:30 pm – 5:30 pm: Writing Your Peace Corps Story Workshop with John Coyne Venue Address: Marvin Center – Fourth Floor George Washington University 800 21st St NW Washington, DC 20052 (Later that evening we’ll be meeting again for a chat and a drink at Tonic (2036 G Street NW)

On September 8th at the International Latino Book Awards Ceremony was held in Los Angeles, with an attendance of more than 2,000, and actor James Edward Olmos presenting the awards. Authors and publishers gathered at one of the largest cultural awards honoring Latinos at California State University/ Dominguez Hills outside of Los Angeles. Awards were giving for books in a variety of genres, including Children and Youth Adults, Biography, History, Politics & Current Affairs, Cookbooks, Travel, Science Fiction, among others, in English, Spanish and Portuguese. Among the award winners were: David Edmonds and his wife and coauthor, Maria Neves Edmonds, who won the prize for best fiction for their novel The Girl in the Glyphs, [Peace Corps Writers, 2016]. The Spanish version of David’s novel Lily of Peru [Peace Corps Writers, 2015],   Liro del Peru, also written by David and Maria, won FIRST PLACE as best translation from English to Spanish. Lirio del Peru also won SECOND PLACE . . .

New Anthology Travels to Twenty More Countries Press 53 announces the publication on September 23, 2016, of Everywhere Stories: Short Fiction from a Small Planet, Volume II, an anthology of 20 stories by 20 authors set in 20 countries. With a theme of “It’s a Mysterious World,” this exciting addition to the Everywhere Stories series, edited by award-winning author Clifford Garstang (South Korea 1976-77), takes readers on a journey around the globe: to a wrestling match in Turkey, to a mysterious eye doctor in Guatemala, to a homeless man wandering the streets of Chicago, to a religious school in Samoa, to a drowning in Mexico, to a fortune-telling monk in Korea, to a miraculous hotel in Egypt, and to more stories in countries on every continent. With four contributors to the anthology, Cliff will appear at the Book Festival at George Mason University on September 27 at 1:30 pm. They . . .

  Thirster meetings have been described as “a salon that comes together for camaraderie, beer, and to discuss issues of common interest.” Dr. Robert Textor was a young cultural anthropologist who worked at Peace Corps in the very first year.  He created the “In, Up, and Out,” policy, helped to train Thailand I, and edited the classic “Cultural Frontiers of the Peace Corps.” When he moved to Portland, Oregon after his retirement from Stanford, he organized the Thirsters – A moveable Feast!  John Dougherty now co-coordinates this group and would be willing to help start a Thirsters in Washington, DC. Here is the description by John Dougherty: “Thirsters:  Originally organized by Robert B. Textor (Professor Emeritus of Anthropology, Stanford) as a worldwide network in about 1997, Thirsters is an informal group of Peace Corps graduates, academics, public servants, business leaders, and other questioning individuals who discuss issues of peace, freedom, . . .

Marian Haley Beil and I will be holding two workshops at the upcoming NPCA Conference in Washington, D.C. on the afternoon of September 21. As the registration for the Conference says:  a workshop led by John Coyne, co-founder of Peace Corps Writers (2:45-3:45 pm, repeated 4:00-5:00 pm) a panel discussion with published RPCV authors led by Marian Haley Beil, co-founder of Peace Corps Writers (2:45-3:45 pm, repeated 4:00-5:00 pm) Marian’s two panel discussions will feature RPCV authors who have published memoirs of their experiences as Peace Corps Volunteers. It will be an opportunity for you to listen to published authors talk about their books and how they went through the process of bringing their stories to print. My two sessions will be on the history of Peace Corps writers, how RPCV books fit into the long American tradition of expatriate writers and what RPCV writers are doing today in writing their . . .

Here is another link to the essay by Kathleen Kanne about De-Selection.  Please comment if the link does not work. This is the research that John just described. https://files.acrobat.com/a/preview/4cf4286b-0f17-4adf-ba0d-2eb361f2b254

In her last year as an undergraduate, Kathleen Kanne, began to write about the training experiences of 1960s and 1970s Peace Corps Volunteers, specifically focusing on the controversial phenomenon of “Deselection.” The result was a 25 page academic paper that won the 2014 Best Senior Thesis award in the American Studies undergraduate program at the University of Minnesota. This summer, Kathleen is a graduate student in the Augsburg Creative Nonfiction MFA program and working on expanding the original idea into an investigative memoir about early Peace Corps training. She is collecting stories that Trainees are willing to share about their experiences. She is also “relaunching” her efforts to obtain actual training documents. Recently she wrote, “Thank you so much for your help with the initial paper. My inbox is open again, so if you would let people know that I want to interview them about  deselection or training psychology, feel . . .