Author Interviews

  Fiction that matters—An Interview with Mark Jacobs (Paraguay) Interviewed by Kurt Baumeister, The Oddville Press http://arthousemedia.com/oddville/interview-jacobs.html (Mark Jacobs (MJ) and Kurt Baumeister (KGB) KGB— You’ve published quite a bit of short fiction, some of it in hallowed literary venues like The Atlantic, Shenandoah, and The Kenyon Review. And you’ve won several prizes for this work. But you’ve also published a few straight spy thrillers. Talk about the impulse to work in different subgenres of fiction—I’ve always hesitated to refer to literary or serious fiction as a genre, but many do so let’s go with it—do you get different satisfactions out of writing serious fiction as opposed to what we think of as “popular” work? MJ— It’s good to connect with you, Kurt. I appreciate the question. A few years ago, I was disappointed to get a turn-down on a story from the editor of one of the prestigious literary magazines. He seemed to like the story I’d sent . . .

  Ambassador Vicki Latham Huddleston (Peru 1964–66) is a retired career Senior Foreign Service Officer who recently published a memoir, Our Woman in Havana: A Diplomat’s Chronicle of America’s Long Struggle with Castro’s Cuba. Over her thirty year career in foreign affairs she has worked for the Department of State, USAID, and the Department of Defense. Her last government assignment was as U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for African Affairs in the Office of the Secretary of Defense from June 2009 through December 2011. Before that she was Chargé d’Affaires ad interim to Ethiopia, United States Ambassador to Mali, Principal Officer of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, and U.S. Ambassador to Madagascar. She was Chief of United States Interests Section in Havana from 1999–2002 and was earlier the Deputy and then the Coordinator of the Office of Cuban Affairs. Prior to joining the Department of Defense, she was a visiting scholar . . .

  Madeline Uraneck (Lesotho 2007-09) is an educator and writer who has visited sixty-four countries through her role as International Education Consultant for the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, several Peace Corps assignments, and her passion for world travel. Her writing has appeared in K–12 curriculum materials, educational handbooks on culture and policy, and publications including WorldView Magazine, Hotline, Global Education, WorldWise Schools, and Isthmus, for which she received a Milwaukee Press Club award. • Madeline, tell us a little about yourself. I’m an Okie, raised by liberal parents in oil country and America’s Bible Belt.  My dad said I had to go to college out of state, so I ended up at Grinnell College in Iowa, then University of Wisconsin in Madison, both bastions of the Midwest, to study Psychology then Education. I’ve been in and out of Wisconsin for 50 years now, from the campus demonstrations of the late 60s . . .

In June 2017 Sandi Giver published One of Us: Sex, Violence, Injustice.  Resilience, Love, Hope with Peace Corps Writers. She describes the book this way: It is “a book with a mission, challenging societal perceptions, and a community of love :-).” Here Sandi answers some questions put to her by Peace Corps Worldwide. • Where and when did you serve in the Peace Corps? In Pader, Uganda from 2009 to 2011. What was your Peace Corp project assignment? I was a Community Health/Youth Development Specialist. Tell us about where you lived and worked. Pader  is a small village with one main road linking the simple market and small stores. It is a former internally-displaced-persons [IDP] camp established during the 21+ years of conflict by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) with the Ugandan government. Originally, I lived on a compound in a thatch-roof hut. Due to the potential safety risk that a villager might . . .

  Mark Walker recently published Different Latitudes: My Life in the Peace Corps and Beyond with Peace Corps Writers. Read more about Mark,  his writing and his book. • Mark, where and when did you serve in the Peace Corps? I served in Guatemala from 1971 to 1973. What was your Peace Corps project assignment? My Peace Corps program was a soil fertilization project that operated under the auspices of the Guatemalan Ministry of Agriculture in cooperation with the University of North Carolina through a contract with USAID. We inventoried soil productivity in our site by taking soil samples and sending them to UNC for analysis. We also tested the productivity of new seed varieties (corn, wheat, beans and potatoes) which were treated with different types of fertilizers. Tell us about where you lived and worked in-country. Initially, I was sent to one of the highest points in Central America, Ixchiguan, in the highlands . . .

  Lenore Myka is the author of King of the Gypsies: Stories (BkMk Press, 2015), winner of the 2014 G.S. Sharat Chandra Prize for Short Fiction, and a finalist for the 2016 Chautauqua Prize. A recipient of a 2016 National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship, Lenore’s fiction has been selected as distinguished by The Best American Short Stories and The Best American Non-Required Reading series. Her award-winning work has appeared in New England Review, Iowa Review, Massachusetts Review, West Branch, and Alaska Quarterly Review, among others. She received her MFA in Fiction from Warren Wilson College and an MA from the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy at Tufts University. She was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Romania from 1994 to 1996, and is currently working on a novel set in her hometown of Buffalo, NY. • Lenore, what is your academic background? I studied English Literature as an undergraduate at the University of Rochester, and . . .