Peace Corps writers

For the next two week, Monday through Friday, I will give you suggestions on how to write your Peace Corps Book. If you wish, you can also put into the ‘Comment’ Section of the blog the first paragraph, page or chapter of your book and I’ll comment on it, as will, I hope, other RPCVs. This class (I hope) will get you started writing your novel or memoirs on your Peace Corps experience. In this first lesson, I am going to focus on two topics: Becoming a Writer and Getting Started. As Fran Lebowitz, author o Metropolitan Life once said, It’s really scary just getting to the desk. My mouth gets dry, my heart beats fast. I react psychologically the way other people react when the plane loses an engine. . Jacques Barzun who taught at Columbia University and wrote wonderful books, wrote this about becoming a writer: Convince yourself . . .

Never Forgotten: Teaching in Rebellious Eritrea 1965–1967 & Returning After 35 Years by Paul E. Huntsberger (Ethiopia 1965–67) LifeRichPublishing October 2014 192 pages $14.99 (paperback) Reviewed by Martin Ganzglass (Somalia 1966–68) • Paul Huntsberger’s Never Forgotten- Teaching in Rebellious Eritrea 1965-1967 & Returning After 35 Years is a Peace Corps memoir written from a unique perspective. Not many Volunteers served in a province of their host country that later became an independent nation. Huntsberger was a middle school teacher from 1965 to 1967, in the small village of Saganeiti, about 40 miles south of Asmara, the capital of the province of Eritrea, then part of Ethiopia. The armed Eritrean struggle for independence began in 1962, the year Emperor Haile Selassie nullified the federal arrangement established by a United Nations Resolution, disbanded the Eritrean parliament and fully annexed Eritrea. The war went on for thirty years, ending in a military victory . . .

A former English teacher and newspaper and magazine journalist, most recently for 22 years at People Ron Arias has published the following books: The Road To Tamazunchale, a novel nominated for a National Book Award; Five Against the Sea, a true survival saga; Healing from the Heart, with Dr. Mehmet Oz; Moving Target: A Memoir of Pursuit, and White’s Rules:Saving Our Youth, One Kid At A Time, with Paul D. White. Most recently he publish a memoir entitled, My Life as a Pencil. An amateur potter, he now lives with his wife Joan in Hermosa Beach, California. This  article appeared recently in Southbay Magazine. Southbay Magazine by Kelly Dawson A soft melody of classical music is playing when Ron Arias enters his studio, lifting a curtain that divides the workspace from the rest of the dark garage. A single light shines above the small area and casts a warm glow on the clay-crusted potter’s wheel, desk and . . .

Posted by John Coyne on Monday, March 2nd 2009 I was struck the other day when I got an email from an RPCV who wanted to know if I was the “most famous” of all the Peace Corps writer. Hello? “Hardly,” I wrote back. I’m not even on that list of writers. So, just in case people don’t know the many, many fine, award-winning writers who served in the Peace Corps, here is a list of the talented and best known of the corps of writer — and one of their books — who once served as Volunteers. And last but not least — Besides RPCVs, a number of members of the staff of the Peace Corps have written major novels and works of non-fiction. Among them: The writers from the Peace Corps also have won almost every major prize of literature, including the National Book Award (Norm Rush & Bob . . .

Clifford Garstang (Korea  1976-77 ) has been selected by The Indianapolis Public Library Foundation as an Emerging Author finalist for the 2015 Eugene & Marilyn Glick Indiana Authors Award. The goal of the Eugene & Marilyn Glick Indiana Authors Award is to elevate the written arts in Indiana, inspiring Hoosiers’ love of reading and attracting greater attention to “home-grown” literary greats. The Award celebrates authors whose quality work has made, or has the potential to make, a lasting public impact. Clifford Garstang is the author of What the Zhang Boys Know, which won the 2013 Library of Virginia Award for Fiction, and the prize-winning short story collection In an Uncharted Country. He is the editor of an anthology, Everywhere Stories: Short Fiction from a Small Planet, a finalist for the International Book Award, and Prime Number Magazine, an online quarterly. He is also the author of the popular literary blog Perpetual . . .

Talking to Phillip Margolin Among famous and successful RPCV writers no one has a wider readership and has been more financially successful than mystery writer Phillip Margolin (Liberia 1965-67) who came home from Africa to attend New York University School of Law, then found his way to Portland, Oregon where from 1972 to 1996 he was in private practice specializing in criminal defense at the trial and appellate levels. Since 1996, however, Margolin has been writing full-time. The majority of his novels have been New York Times bestsellers. In addition to all this, his daughter grew up to become a Peace Corps Volunteer. After turning this site’s spotlight on Phillip Margolin recently, I spoke to him about his career and his bestselling novels, how he writes, and why. • Phillip, tell us something about yourself. Well, I grew up in New York City and Levittown, New York.  I graduated from . . .

FIRST PERSON EDITING SERVICE Now that book editors no longer actually edit, emerging writers need more help than ever. First Person Editing Service offers proofreading, fact checking, and all other editing services. Our two-person team — published author Chris Belden (Shriver) and copy editor Melissa DeMeo (Reader’s Digest, Good Housekeeping, etc.) — will whip your fiction or creative nonfiction manuscript into shape. Please visit www.firstpersonediting.com for details about our services and fees.

These 6 RPCVs Guessed The Right Writer In This Order Congratulations! A PEACE CORPS PIN IS ON ITS WAY (suitable to wear at formal occasions) Gary Garrison Mark Wentling Matt Losak Tucker Clark Marnie Mueller Karl Luntta

THE PEACE CORPS’ MOST SUCCESSFUL RPCV WRITER PHILIP MARGOLIN LIBERIA 1967-69 NOVELS PUBLISHED Violent Crimes (2016) Woman with a Gun (2015) Worthy Brown’s Daughter (2014) Sleight of Hand (2013) Capitol Murder (2012) Vanishing Acts (2011) Supreme Justice (2010) Fugitive (2009) Executive Privilege (2008) Proof Positive (2006) Lost Lake (2005) Sleeping Beauty (2004) Ties That Bind (2003) The Associate (2002) Wild Justice (2000) The Undertaker’s Widow (1998) The Burning Man (1996) After Dark (1995) Gone, But Not Forgotten (1993) The Last Innocent Man (1981) Heartstone (1978)

Luck played a large part. I only had one writing class, a C + in Creative Writing my sophomore year in college. I started writing a novel in law school because I couldn’t figure out how anyone could fill up 400 pages with words. My first novel was awful but I enjoyed the writing process so writing became a hobby. In my thirties a magazine published a short story I’d written and I got the self-confidence to try a serious novel but I had no idea what to do with it when I finished it because I’d never met anyone in publishing or anyone who had published a novel. I had five chapters and an outline written when a law school friend called from New York to say that he and his wife wanted to visit on vacation. I told them they could stay at my house and I would . . .

#1 New York Times bestselling master of suspense delivers his most shocking thriller yet, proving that a well-placed lie can help build a wonderful life- and a secret has the same explosive power to destroy it. A Stranger appears out of nowhere, perhaps in a bar, or a parking lot, or at the grocery store. His identity is unknown. His motives are unclear. His information is undeniable. Then he whispers a few words in your ear and disappears, leaving you picking up the pieces of your shattered world. Adam Price has a lot to lose: a comfortable marriage to a beautiful woman, two wonderful sons, and all the trappings of the American Dream: a big house, a good job, a seemingly perfect life. Then he runs into the Stranger. When he learns a devastating secret about his wife, Corinne, he confronts her, and the mirage of perfection disappears as if . . .

“It takes a really crafty storyteller to put people on the edge of their seats and keep them there.” Chicago Tribune “The masterful___plays delicious tricks on his readers.” Perri O’Shaughnessy “_____is the master of the successful suspense mystery.” Pittsburgh Tribune Review “____will have you turning pages furiously.” Otto Penzler “____makes chills race down readers’ spines.” Publishers Weekly “A master of plot and pacing-and one of those rare authors who can create a genuinely surprising ending.” Lisa Scottoline “In the hands of _____, nothing is ever simple and no one is really safe. He is the master of suspense mystery.” Associated Press “_______knows how to pack in the thrills.” Tess Gerritsen “______deliver[s] one of his cleverest cases.” Kirkus Reviews “Like his inspirations, he gives us plenty of gems: shocking situations met with clever wisecracks; sordid personal histories that tumble out in a moment of panic; broken souls who confess their love . . .

To help you pick the ‘winner’ here are a few more facts about this writer. This writer has written 19 novels, 17 of which have been New York Times bestsellers First novel published received the Mystery Writers of America Edgar award for best original paperback mystery novel of 1978 Second novel published was made into a HBO movie Third novel was sold to 25 foreign publishers and made into a mini-series starring Brooke Shields Third novel was also a Main Selection of the Literary Guild Four novel was a Book of the Month Club section Fifth novel was a Main Selection of the Literary Guild and a Reader’s Digest condense book Sixth novel was a Book of the Month Club Section Seventh novel was a Main Selection of the Literary Guild, and selected by the Book of the Month Club Writer was also awarded a Distinguished Writers Award Writer has . . .

Additional Facts about the Writer Served in the first decade of the Peace Corps Peace Corps assignment was as an Administrative Assistant to Director of Foreign Trade, also worked in the National Planning Agency as a transport economist attached to the Harvard Advisory Group Has a law degree Has appeared before the United States Supreme Court Pioneered the use of the battered woman’s syndrome in four murder cases Freed two innocent men sentenced to life in prison for murders they did not commit In college took one Creative Writing class and received a C + The writer had never met anyone in publishing or anyone who had written a novel before publishing one The writer’s next novel will be published by HarperCollins in 2016 The author’s hometown