Peace Corps writers

The Award for Best Book of Photography was first presented in 2009. • CONGRATULATIONS to Douglas Cruickshank (Uganda 2009–12) for winning the Peace Corps Writers 2014 Best Book of Photography for his photography and his essays for Somehow published in 2013.  Douglas will receive a small cash award and a certificate. Douglas Cruickshank has written journalism, travel stories, profiles, essays and opinion pieces for many magazines, newspapers and web sites and has worked in radio, television and film-making. He has been a photographer for more than four decades, a columnist and editor for Salon.com, and has edited numerous books. The following account, drawn from the introduction to Somehow: Living on Uganda Time, tells of how he came to join the Peace Corps, and his first impressions of Uganda. In early 2008 I started doing something. At first, I didn’t know exactly what I was doing or why I was doing . . .

Peace Corps Writers began presenting awards for Best Children’s Book in 2001. • CONGRATULATIONS to Jim Averbeck for winning the 2014 Peace Corps Writers Best Book for Children award for his charming story The Market Bowl that he both wrote and illustrated. The Market Bowl is set in Cameroon and was published in 2013. Jim will receive a small cash award, and a certificate. Peace Corps Writers asked Jim a few questions about the Peace Corps, Cameroon, and writing books for children (and their parents) that he has agreed to share with us. .Why the Peace Corps? When I graduated from college I felt my life was becoming consumed with chasing money, instead of learning and growing. So when a friend jokingly told me I should join the Peace Corps, I explored the possibility. And the more I looked at it, the more I wanted to do it. It seemed . . .

THE PEACE CORPS EXPERIENCE AWARD was initiated in 1992. It is presented annually to a Peace Corps Volunteer or staff member, past or present for the best depiction of life in the Peace Corps. It can be a personal essay, story, novella, poem, letter, cartoon, song or memoir. The subject matter can be any aspect of the Peace Corps experience — daily life, assignment, travel, host country nationals, other Volunteers, readjustment. In 1997, this award was renamed to honor Moritz Thomsen (Ecuador 1965—67) whose Living Poor has been widely cited as an outstanding telling of the essence of the Peace Corps experience. • CONGRATULATIONS to Eleanor Stanford (Cape Verde 1998–2000) for winning the  2014 Moritz Thomsen Peace Corps Experience Award for her memoir História, História: Two Years in the Cape Verde Islands. Eleanor will receive a small cash award, and a certificate. This is the second Peace Corps Writers Award . . .

To purchase any of these books from Amazon.com, click on the book cover, the bold book title, or the format you would like — and Peace Corps Worldwide, an Amazon Associate, will receive a small remittance that will help support our annual writers awards. • Long Ago and Far Away (novel) by John Coyne (Ethiopia 1962–64) A Peace Corps Writers Book 342 pages July 2014 $18.00 (paperback), $9.99 (Kindle) • Letters from Yemen (Peace Corps letters) by Mary Lou Currier (Yemen 1991–94) CreateSpace 158 pages June 2014 $21.00 (paperback) • Church of the Adagio: Poems by Philip Dacey (Nigeria 1963–65) Rain Mountian Press 95 pages July 2014 $15.00 (paperback) • Dead Not Dead (mystery) by John Charles Miller (Dominican Republic 1962–64) CreateSpace 150 pages 2013 $9.99 (paperback), $2.99 (Kindle) • The Italian Letter (non-fiction) by Peter Eisner and Knut Royce (Ethiopia 1962–64) Amazon Digital July 2014 288 print pages $5.95 . . .

FIRST GIVEN IN 1990, the Paul Cowan Non-Fiction Award was named to honor Paul Cowan, a Peace Corps Volunteer who served in Ecuador from 1966 to 1967. Cowan wrote  The Making of An Un-American about his experiences as a Volunteer in Latin America in the ’60s. A longtime activist and political writer for The Village Voice, Cowan died of leukemia in 1988. • CONGRATULATIONS to Laurence Leamer for winning the 2014 Paul Cowan Non-Fiction Award from Peace Corps Writers for his legal thriller that tells the story of a coal giant CEO who sets out to destroy a small mine owner in West Virginia, The Price of Justice: A True Story of Greed and Corruption published in 2013. Larry receives a small cash award, and a certificate. . Review of The Price of Justice first published in Peace Corps Writers on April 17, 2013 The Price of Justice: A True . . .

. THE MARIA THOMAS FICTION AWARD is named after the novelist Maria Thomas [Roberta Worrick (Ethiopia 1971–73)] who was the author of a well-reviewed novel Antonia Saw the Oryx First,  and two collections of short stories, Come to Africa and Save Your Marriage: And Other Stories and African Visas: A Novella and Stories, all set in Africa. Roberta lost her life in August, 1989, while working in Ethiopia for a relief agency. She went down in the plane crash that also  killed her husband, Thomas Worrick (Ethiopia 1971–73), and Congressman Mickey Leland of Texas. • CONGRATULATIONS to Dan Close (Ethiopia 1966–68) for winning the 2014 Maria Thomas Fiction Award from Peace Corps Writers for his historical novel set in Ethiopia in 1896, The Glory of the Kings, published in 2013. Dan receives a small cash award, and a certificate. . Review of The Glory of the Kings first published in . . .

Rush of Shadows by Catherine [Fitch] Bell (Brazil 1966–68) was chosen by the Washington Writers Publishing House (WWPH) as the fiction book it will published in 2014. The WWPH sponsors an annual competition for writers living in the Washington-Baltimore area working in fiction and poetry. The winning works in these two categories comprise the pair of books that WWPH publishes each year. “Rush of Shadows evokes the clash between natives and settlers in 19th century California through the friendship of two women — one white, one Indian. Tough-minded and lyrical, Rush of Shadows brings to life the human dimensions of a tragic conflict which corrupted the winners and left the losers to haunt the landscape as shadows.” The official publication date for Rush of Shadows is October 15th, however it currently can be purchased at Amazon. Rush of Shadows (historical fiction) by Catherine Bell (Brazil 1966-68) Washington Writers Publishing House . . .

Paul Theroux (Malawi 1963-65) has a new story in the August 4, 2014 issue of The New Yorker entitled, “Action” which is one of the stories in the collection  he will publish in October entitled, Mr. Bones: Twenty Stories. In the New Yorker John Updike is quoted as saying that  Mr. Bones exhibits Theroux’s “fluent, faintly sinister powers of vision and imagination.” To pre-order Mr. Bones from Amazon.com, click on the book cover or the bold book title  — and Peace Corps Worldwide, an Amazon Associate, will receive a small remittance that will help support our annual writers awards.

The New York Times ran a lengthy, front-page article in its Sunday edition (7/27/14) about Peace Corps writer Jason Carter (South Africa 1998–2000) who is the Democratic candidate for Governor in Georgia, and the close relationship he has with his grandfather, former President Jimmy Carter. The article relates that Jason was advised to join the Peace Corps by his grandfather. In 2002, Jason published his memoir of his Peace Corps experience, Power Lines: Two Years on South Africa’s Borders (National Geographic Society) and in 2003 the book won the Peace Corps Writers Paul Cowan Non-Fiction Award. Read “Grandson Proudly Squirms in Carter’s Footsteps” by Sheryl Gay Stolberg, for insight into the special bond between these two men.

The August issue of New Republic carries a long (and engaging) piece by Tom Bissell (Uzbekistan 1996–97) entitled, “You Are Now Entering The Demented Kingdom of William T. Vollmann.” Vollmann, as Tom writes, “has been churning out thick, conceptually audacious books faster than New York publishing could keep pace. From 1987 through 1993, for instance, Vollmann published eight books through five difference houses.” It turns out that Tom Bissell first came upon Vollmann’s vast outpouring when he was 26 and an assistant at Henry Holt. Vollmann had sent in his manuscript, Rising Up and Rising Down, on compact disks that translated into 3,800 pages of paper Tom had to print out for his editor. In an interview with Vollman this year, Bissell appears to have been taken back by the strangeness of the man who, among other things, was listed as a Unabomber suspect. Vollmann found out that only when . . .

A couple of days ago Brooke Warner at Huffington Post posted an article listing mistakes new writers shouldn’t make. They are: 1. Believing what they want to hear. 2. Not taking advantage of every available digital platform. 3. Deciding that they don’t need a marketing campaign, or starting one too late. 4. Believing that more is better. 5. Going renegade. 6. Not doing enough research on who they’re publishing with. 7. Believing that “traditional” is better, no matter what. 8. Failing to get sample product. 9. Not hiring professionals. 10. Choosing a print run over print-on-demand (POD). NOW, go to “The 10 Biggest Mistakes New Authors Make” to read the whys.

Church of the Adagio: Poems by Philip Dacey (Nigeria 1963-65) Rain Mountain Press $15.00 95 pages June 2014 Reviewed by Mark Brazaitis (Guatemala 1991-93) Reading Philip Dacey’s poems is like having a conversation with a funny, sophisticated, and insightful friend. You’re laughing, you’re nodding in appreciation, you’re saying, “A-ha. I never saw things that way, but-wow-you’re right.” And you don’t want to say goodbye anytime soon. If you pick up Dacey’s new collection of poems, I guarantee you will: 1. Laugh. At, for example, a poem about a llama who shows up in Dacey’s driveway. “I was all stammer and gawk and disbelief,” Dacey writes. When the llama ventures into the middle of the road, however, Dacey must act: . . . I saw the headline, “Llama killed by truck.” Dropping the rake, I raced to rescue him, who now stood frozen, straddling the centerline, looking this way and that-oh, too much . . .

Gwyn Hyman Rubio’s newest novel will be published in October. Entitled Love & Ordinary Creatures. Gwyn’s website says this about the book: Love and Ordinary Creatures is told through the eyes of a cockatoo in love with his very human caretaker. Snatched in a net from his Australian homeland as a young parrot, Caruso has adapted to captivity and has learned the lessons of love from his previous owner, Theodore Pinter, who was obsessively fixated on his childhood sweetheart. Now in his new home with the beautiful and talented Clarissa, Caruso has found both love and happiness—until a handsome stranger arrives in town and sets his sights on Clarissa. Smart, passionate, and wildly inventive, Caruso strives to put his human rival in his place before he steals Clarissa away for good. Set in the early 1990s in the quaint seashore town of Ocracoke, North Carolina, Love and Ordinary Creatures is . . .

I just came across an article that was published in May of 2004 on the our old website Peace Corps Writers that is worthy of republishing for all those contemplating — or are in the midst of — writing a book. — M • The Ticking by Bonnie Lee Black (Gabon 1996–98) • THERE IS a classic fiction-writing-workshop story that goes something like this: A man drove home from work, pulled into his driveway, and parked his car. As he opened his front door he called out, “Hi, Honey, I’m home!” Then he settled into his favorite chair, exhausted, to read the evening paper. “Sweetheart, I’m just putting a pie in the oven,” he heard his wife call out from the kitchen. “Dinner will be ready in about a half hour.” “Great,” said her husband, “I’m starving to death.” “So what?” you say? “Who cares?” You put the story down . . .

Yes, our very own, recently retired editor has just published his latest novel — it’s number 13! Here’s what John has to say about his new book in his PRESS RELEASE: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE LONG AGO AND FAR AWAY By John Coyne Displaying the storytelling skill that has made him a seven-time bestselling author, John Coyne delivers a suspenseful, haunting and tender story about star-crossed lovers who first meet in their twenties and four decades later are reunited. The novel takes place on three continents, and involves the lives of four main characters. The plot pivots around the tragic death in 1973 of a young woman in Ethiopia. The outcome of a trial changes the lives of the four young people, leaving unresolved the question of whether it was an accident or murder. Long Ago and Far Away opens in Westchester, New York, in 2008, and through a series of . . .