Author - John Coyne

[George Packer (Togo 1982-83) put up this item yesterday on The New Yorker website. It is really a smart piece on presidents, vice presidents, and how history repeats itself.] In one of those coincidences that get you thinking in historical analogies, President Obama announced support for same-sex marriage just a few days after the publication of Robert Caro’s fourth volume on the life of Lyndon B. Johnson, “The Passage of Power.” Obama arrived at his position in very much the way that John F. Kennedy decided to put the force of the White House behind civil rights: slowly, reluctantly, and with a big assist from his overlooked, often ridiculed Vice-President. I spent the summer of 1980 as an intern at a legal-aid office in southern Alabama, and in the houses of poor black people I got used to seeing a sign on the wall that said, “The three who set . . .

Before Peter Hessler was awarded a “genius” grant by the MacArthur Foundation, and before he was a PCV in China (1996-98), he was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. Of that time, he writes in the current issue of The New Yorker, (May 21, 2012). He found part-time work standing in police lineups. At the time he was reading, as they say at Oxford, English Language and Literature, and his courses included tutorials on Middle English, Spenser, Shakespeare, the seventeenth century, and the eighteenth century. At the start of the Michaelmas term, he saw a notice that the St. Aldates Police Station was looking for volunteers to stand in identity parades. They paid ten pounds per parade. So Peter went down to the station and signed up. His first parade was for stealing bikes. The station hadn’t finished constructing its viewing room, which would feature a one-way mirror. For the time being, . . .

It would take the lengthy pages of The New York Review of Books(June 7, 2012) to bring these two old Peace Corps African hands together, with one reviewing the other. Theroux’s book, The Lower River, is out this month from Houghton Mifflin, and here’s the basic plot: “Ellis Hock never believed that he would return to Africa. He runs an old-fashioned menswear store in a small town in Massachusetts but still dreams of his Eden, the four years he spent in Malawi with the Peace Corps, cut short when he had to return to take over the family business. When his wife leaves him, and he is on his own, he realizes that there is one place for him to go: back to his village in Malawi, on the remote Lower River, where he can be happy again. Arriving at the dusty village, he finds it transformed: the school he built . . .

“The Playground by Terrence M. McCoy (Cambodia 2009-11) was reviewed in the Washington Post today, Sunday, May 11, 2012 by Steven Levingston. Levingston writes: Kindle Singles is a 15-month-old e-book venture from Amazon that strives to publish original fiction and nonfiction works at Goldilocks length: not too long, not too short but just right. Its Web site lays out the ambition: “Compelling Ideas Expressed at Their Natural Length.” The books, as short as David Baldacci’s 15-page story “No Time Left” or as long as Dean Koontz’s 102-page “The Moonlit Mind,” are vetted, accepted (or rejected) and edited by David Blum and put on sale at the very modern price of 99 cents to $4.99. Kindle Singles isn’t just for brand-name authors. It serves its greatest purpose by showcasing the work of unknown authors of exceptional ability, such as the journalist Terrence M. McCoy. His just-released book, “The Playground” is an ire-inspiring . . .

Tom Bissell (Uzbekistan 1996-97) is the author of Extra Lives, Chasing the Sea, God Lives in St. Petersburg, and The Father of All Things. He is the recipient of the Rome Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Bay de Noc Community College Alumnus of the Year Award. He lives in Los Angeles, but knowing Tom, he might not be there long. When we were last in touch, he was teaching in Portland, Oregon. Previous to that, he lived in New York City, Ho Chi Minh City, Rome, Las Vegas, and Tallinn. And this is a guy who is from the middle of nowhere, Escanaba, Michigan. What keeps him on the move is his writing and research. Tom has just published a new collection of essays that “explores the highs and lows of the creative process.” He takes us from the set of The Big Bang Theory to the first novel . . .

A new novel is out this month from Amazon.com as an ebook written by that wonderful writer, Peter Lefcourt (Togo 1962-64) Peter is best known for his best-selling comic novels: The Deal, The Dreyfus Affair, Di & I, Abbreviating Ernie, The Woody, Eleven Karens and The Manhattan Project. This, however,  is a much more serious book. An American Family is told through the shifting points of view of the five Perl siblings born in the 1940’s, and between the two iconic dates of the last fifty years: the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the catastrophe of 9/11. Within this time frame one family is swept up in the sweeping cultural changes of those years: the Vietnam War, the sexual revolution, rock music, drugs, women’s liberation, the turbulence in American culture. Writing this book took Peter away from what he has done to make a living since his Peace Corps . . .

The Independent Publisher Book Awards (the “IPPYs”) are intended to bring increased recognition to the thousands of exemplary independent, university, and self-published titles published each year. The awards are open to all members of the independent publishing industry, and to authors and publishers worldwide who produce books written in English and intended for the North American market. Since the inaugural contest in 1996, over 4,500 books have received IPPY Awards, and all the recognition, credibility, and increased sales that a book award can bring. Independent spirit and expertise comes from publishers of all sizes and budgets, and books are judged with that in mind. Entry for the 2012 IPPYs closed on March 15th. The results were announced last week. Among the winners was a Peace Corps Writers book: Peacemaker of the Year Answering Kennedy’s Call: Pioneering the Peace Corps in the Philippines edited by RPCVs who served in the Philippines . . .

Years ago I went to St. Louis University as a 17-year-old undergraduate to attend their Writer’s Institute and to prepare myself to be the next Great American Novelist. The Writer’s Institute was then one of the few ‘writing programs’ in the country. I never became the Great American Novelist, and in typical Jesuit logic the University closed down their wonderful Writer’s Institute in the 1960s, just when many colleges and universities across the country were emulating the great Iowa Writer MFA program. Teaching creative writing has now become a cash cow for higher education. I am not sure how many full-time and low-residency creative writing programs there are in the U.S. and around the world, but it must be in the thousands. What I find particularly amusing is not that there are so many programs (mostly for poets) but how they go about ‘selling’ themselves to would-be Great American Novelists. . . .

Barry Kitterman will read from his newest collection of short stories, From the San Joaquin, at 7:30 p.m. May 9 in Huber Auditorium in Badgley Hall, Room 102 at EOU. Copies of the author’s work will be available for purchase and signing following the reading presented by EOU’s Ars Poetica Lecture Series. The event is free and open to the public. Kitterman grew up in the small town of Ivanhoe in the San Joaquin Valley and received his undergraduate degree in English at the University of California at Berkeley. After spending two years in the Peace Corps in Belize, he completed the master of fine arts program at the University of Montana. Author Robert Garner McBrearty writes, “Kitterman’s stories are humorous and poignant, tender and touching in their memorable depiction of life in small-town California. He renders his characters so authentically and compassionately we feel we know their hopes and . . .

The Unofficial Peace Corps Handbook by Travis Hellstrom (Mongolia 2008–11) Advance Humanity Publishing 2010 234 pages $15.95 paperback Review by Lawrence F. Lihosit (Honduras, 1975-77) HELLSTROM’S GUIDE IS OF THE MYSTICAL GENRE, much like Zen In the Art of Archery, for this is a book about acceptance. Unlike recent guides which outline application, training, service and homecoming, this book offers very few lists. It offers comfort. “The happiest Peace Corps Volunteers are the ones who make peace,” explains the author. Be forewarned that if you are concerned about our voracious appetite for paper and the disappearance of forests, the format might disturb you: it contains 97 blank pages (more than one third of the book). The blank pages are for volunteers to write on. Of the pages with print, many contain less than 20 lines like a poetry book. I imagine that the author’s intent is akin to poetry — . . .