About Peace Corps Worldwide

Peace Corps Worldwide is a non-profit organization whose mission is to uphold the literary legacy of the Peace Corps by publishing original works of fiction and non-fiction from authors aligned with our shared values of global peace and partnership. We pursue this mission in three ways:

Publishing full-length books on the Peace Corps Writers imprint that align with a central theme of enhancing cross-cultural understanding
Producing a weekly newsletter on Substack featuring new book announcements and reviews, as well as news of interest to the Peace Corps community
Administering the annual Peace Corps Writers Awards honoring the best published work from our community

This effort is at the heart of the Third Goal of the Peace Corps — to “bring the world back home.” Supporting the creative efforts of volunteers — their memoirs, novels, short stories, essays, poetry, and articles — is a positive way of educating Americans about the world, providing a link between the cultures of the world and our own.

Peace Corps Worldwide was founded in 1989 by John Coyne and Marian Haley Beil (both Ethiopia RPCVs, 1962–64) to promote, encourage and recognize the literary efforts of writers who served in the Peace Corps. Peace Corps Worldwide generates a small amount of revenue from paid subscriptions to our newsletter on Substack, affiliate revenue from book purchases on Amazon that originated on our website, and through donations. We are currently awaiting determination of our 501(c)(3) status and expect all donations to be tax deductible retroactive to our nonprofit incorporation in December 2025.

Peace Corps Worldwide, and its publishing imprint Peace Corps Writers, are independent of, and completely autonomous from, the Peace Corps federal agency. The opinions, ideas, and narratives expressed herein are our own, and do not reflect those of the U.S. government.

Our team

Publisher: Glenn A. Blumhorst (Guatemala 1988-91)

Glenn Blumhorst became managing editor of Peace Corps Worldwide in December 2024. He is a distinguished leader in the Peace Corps community and a stalwart champion of the Peace Corps’ Third Goal as a returned Peace Corps Volunteer.

Glenn is currently leading the Peace Corps Foundation in its flagship $12 million campaign to establish Peace Corps Park on a National Park Service site near Capitol Hill and the National Mall. Glenn earned his reputation as a strategic, transformative, and visionary leader during long-term tenures at two prestigious organizations – ACDI/VOCA (1994-2012) and National Peace Corps Association (2013-22) – where he significantly increased the visibility, resources, effectiveness, and impact of both entities. He began his national service career as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Guatemala from 1988 to 1991.

Glenn is also a 2022 co-founder and CEO of Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Ventures, a public beneficiary corporation, and a 2023 co-founder and treasurer of Global Peace PAC, a 501(c)(4) political action committee. He serves on the advisory boards of the National Museum and Center for Service, Peace Corps Connect to the Future, and CorpsAfrica. He holds graduate and undergraduate degrees from the University of Missouri, where he was the 2018 recipient of the Faculty-Alumni Award, the most prestigious award given to a Mizzou alumnus.

A native of rural Missouri, Glenn is a global citizen, having lived, worked, or traveled in over 70 countries and all 50 states of the United States. He has resided abroad more than 20 cumulative years and has near-native Spanish language fluency. An aviation enthusiast, Glenn is an experienced private pilot, having logged more than 500 hours as pilot-in-command of single- and multi-engine aircraft.

Connect with Glenn Blumhorst on LinkedIn

President and Editorial Director: Greg Emerson Bocquet (Morocco 2003, Peru 2003-05)

Greg Emerson is a journalist, editor and digital communications consultant who has worked across all aspects of publishing in the 20 years since his Peace Corps service in Morocco and Peru. As a journalist he managed digital teams at Newsday, The Wall Street Journal, HuffPost, The Atlantic, and The Intercept, receiving numerous awards including being named a 2014 Pulitzer Prize Finalist in the Public Service category for Newsday’s investigative project about police misconduct on Long Island.

He currently supports the fundraising effort to build Peace Corps Park in Washington, D.C. as the Peace Corps Foundation’s communications lead, authoring newsletters and creating content for all digital platforms.

Greg also serves as a developmental editor on full-length manuscript projects, primarily working with non-fiction and memoir projects. He is also a frequent contributor to the National Peace Corps Association’s (NPCA) WorldView magazine and manages a team of representatives of NPCA to the United Nations in New York.

Connect with Greg Emerson on LinkedIn and Goodreads

Review Coordinator: Cindy Mosca (Ethiopia 1967-69)

After the Peace Corps, Cindy returned to teaching art but eventually went into the field of ESL. She became the Director of the Bilingual Program, Cicero, Illinois. She has a son and a daughter who live in the Chicago area. She and her partner, Dennis live in Bloomington, Indiana. They both love to travel and you can find a record of it (including a 2019 return to Ethiopia) at https://ourbetter.blogspot.com/. Cindy is also a Peace Corps Worldwide Advisory Council member.

Founding Editor Emeritus: John Coyne (Ethiopia 1962–64)

John was with the first group of Peace Corps Volunteers to go to Ethiopia and taught English in Addis Ababa. After completing his service, he worked for the Peace Corps in Washington, and then became an Associate Peace Corps Director in Ethiopia.

He left the Peace Corps in 1967 to become Dean of Admissions and Students at the SUNY/Old Westbury, and later turned to writing full time. In 1995 John returned to the Peace Corps as Special Assistant to the Associate Director for Volunteer Support where he conceived of and edited three essay books about the Peace Corps experience: To Touch the World, At Home in the World, and Peace Corps: The Great Adventure, and wrote the concept paper that outlined a new role for Peace Corps Volunteers — the Crisis Corps, later renamed the Response Corps. In 1996 he was appointed Manager of the New York Peace Corps Recruitment Office.

John, who is considered an authority on the history of the Peace Corps, has written or edited over twenty-five books including Going Up Country: Travel Essays by Peace Corps Writers and Living on the Edge: Fiction by Peace Corps Writers.

John was a co-founder of the Peace Corps Fund — the non-profit foundation to support Third Goal activities of returned Peace Corps Volunteers, and was a member of the board of Ethiopia & Eritrea RPCVs.

He not only writes numerous articles for Peace Corps Worldwide including in-depth pieces on the history of the Peace Corps and the people who developed the agency, but is also the seeker of Peace Corps writers who wish to contribute articles to the site.

Founding Publisher Emerita: Marian Haley Beil (Ethiopia 1962–64)

Marian has enjoyed a variety of incarnations. As a Volunteer she taught math in a secondary school in the town of Debre Berhan. Subsequently she worked at Peace Corps/Washington, from 1965 to 1969, married RPCV Donald Beil (Somalia 1964–66) and had two sons, earned an MFA in weaving and textile design and worked as a fiber artist. Since 1987 she has worked as a publication designer and technical illustrator — and now book designer and editor and publisher of the imprint Peace Corps Writers.

She was the founder of Ethiopia & Eritrea RPCVs in 1991 and for many years was president of the board; and co-founder of Rochester (NY) RPCVs. She has been publisher and designer of Peace Corps Writers/Peace Corps Writers & Readers/Peace Corps Worldwide since its inception in 1989.ji