Archive - March 8, 2018

To further fulfill its goals to encourage, recognize and promote Peace Corps writers, RPCV Writers & Readers, the newsletter that was the precursor of PeaceCorpsWriters.org and PeaceCorpsWorldwide.org, presented its first annual awards for outstanding writing in 1990. A total of 143 awards have been given since that time. Winners receive a certificate and small cash award. When possible, Peace Corps Writers Awards are presented at the RPCV Conference Awards Ceremony. Next year, the Awards will be announced at the NPCA Conference at Shawnee, PA in late August. Nominate your favorite Peace Corps book published in 2017 by sending an email to: jcoyneone@gmail.com The Awards THE MARIA THOMAS FICTION AWARD, first presented in 1990, is named after the novelist Maria Thomas [Roberta Worrick (Ethiopia 1971–73)] who was the author of the 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 . . .

The Intimate Other In “Place of Rest,” Teddy Wilson decides he wants to die in Paraguay. In “Old School,” Rowen Royce makes the decision to live there. For both American characters, Paraguay has become the intimate other. It is a place to which they do not belong but are irresistibly drawn. The choice they make is both conscious and blind. They are impelled. Choosing a largely rural, semi-tropical, landlocked country with a history of problematic government calls for a leap of faith, but faith in what? Neither Teddy nor Rowen would put it this way, but they trust in Paraguay’s otherness, which despite differences of temperament and experience they both find unspeakably beautiful. In an act of defiant identification they ally themselves with the dazzled streets of Asunción summer, the dizzying green sweep of countryside. The way dust hangs in the air over a dirt road down which cowboys have . . .