Archive - June 25, 2020

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A Writer Writes — “Reading Masks,” a poem by Tony Zurlo (Nigeria)
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Nominate the Best RPCV Books of 2019 — awards will be announced in August 2020

A Writer Writes — “Reading Masks,” a poem by Tony Zurlo (Nigeria)

  My brother-in-law suffered a bad stroke about a decade ago and was stricken with aphasia. In the last couple of years before his death in January 2019, he was in therapy and he made this mask. I thought it was a profound struggle of a “soul” shouting out to a world that had “forgotten him.” Jim’s soul must have been desperately wanting to speak to former friends or even family, and the mask reveals to me a plea for a touch of love, or a simple smile from that outer world that he will never see again. I hope the poem speaks for itself. Reading Masks by Tony Zurlo (Nigeria 1964-66   I. We think we read faces and focus on a people’s eyes, “the windows to the soul.” But each  mask speaks a different language, and each mask looks at us with a different set of eyes. Sometimes faces and . . .

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Nominate the Best RPCV Books of 2019 — awards will be announced in August 2020

  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 163 awards have been given since that time. When possible, Peace Corps Writers Awards are presented at the RPCV Conference Awards Ceremony. The awards are: The Moritz Thomsen Peace Corps Experience Award The Paul Cowan Non-Fiction Award The Maria Thomas Fiction Award The Award for Best Book of Poetry The Award for Best Short Story Collection The Award for Best Travel Book The Award for Best Photography Book The Award for Best Children’s Book about a Peace Corps Country Other Awards Send you nomination(s) to John Coyne at jcoyneone@gmail.com (You may nominate your own book. Make sure you are nominating a book that was published in 2019.)

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