Peace Corps writers

In August, Tim Flaherty (Guatemala 1974-76) published his Peace Corps memoir, Your Hand in My Hand: The Memoirs of a Former Peace Corps Volunteer. The opening sentence  of the book jacket copy reads: “This very personal book/memoir has been written in order to inform people of the very dangerous locations where Peace Corps volunteers are sent throughout Latin America.” Tim goes onto write, ” As a Peace Corps volunteer I lived in one such place called Asuncion Mita in the southeastern part of Guatemala, Central America. Many of the men from that region openly carry guns for their own protection. However, others very often use these armaments to threaten and kill people after little to no provocation or after becoming stone cold drunk. During my work in Asuncion Mita, I knew two neighbors whom were shot to death from point blank range just across the street from my residence. These . . .

Joanna Luloff (Sri Lanka 1996-98) will be reading from her interwoven collection of stories The Beach at Galle Road at the Harvard Book Store on Tuesday, October 23. This is her first book. Joanna Luloff received her BA from Vassar College and her MFA from Emerson College, and her PhD in Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Missouri. Her fiction has appeared in The Missouri Review, Confrontation Magazine, and New South. The basic theme of this book, which is being published this month by Algonquin Books, is that when the rumors of civil war between the ruling Sinhalese and the Tamils in the northern sector of Sri Lanka reach those who live in the south, somehow it seems not to be happening in their own country. At least not until Janaki’s sister, Lakshmi, now a refugee whose husband has disappeared, comes back to live with her family. And . . .

 A new e-pub venture opened this week in New Mexico. It is called, “Snackreads,” and their front page features a science-fiction short story by Suzy McKee Charnas (Nigeria 1961-63) entitled Scorched Supper on New Niger. It is Suzy’s only story that draws directly with her Peace Corps experience in Nigeria in the early sixties. The story is 17,000 words long, is available in the formats: Kindle, EPUB, and PDF. The publisher, SnackReads, says “if you like Science Fiction, women in space, high stakes intrigue, uplifted cats, just desserts” you will love Scorched Supper on New Niger.” The plot goes this way: Space pilot Dee Steinway has so far escaped the clutches of her empire-building brother-in-law; now he has her, her feline companion, and her uniquely valuable spaceship in his sights. Will her desperate landing at a colony of traders from Old Africa lead to an escape, a delicious comeuppance, or a trap?    Here is . . .

In the September 28, 2012, issue of the Times Literary Supplement,  reviewer Alison Kelly compares Brazaitis’ award winning collection of stories, The Incurables (published by the University of Notre Dame Press) to Sherwood Anderson’s famous story-cycle, Winesburg, Ohio, saying of Mark’s book, “The Incurables deserves a lasting place among regional story cycles; it brings small town Ohio palpably alive and combines a comic relish for the bizarre with a tenderness towards human frailty”.

The Immanence of God in the Tropics by George Rosen (Kenya 1968-70) Leapfrog Press $15.95 167 pages 2012 Reviewed by Susi Wyss (Central African Republic 1990-92) All seven stories in George Rosen’s new collection, The Immanence of God in the Tropics, were previously published in top-notch literary magazines such as Harper’s and North American Review. After a bit of online research, I was surprised to learn that these stories were published over a 31-year period, starting with “Our Big Game” (published in 1978) and ending with “A Second Language” (published in 2009). Of course, Rosen produced plenty of other work during that time, including a novel called Black Money and reportage for the Atlantic and the Boston Globe. But I can’t help think that the long period over which these stories were written attest to the labor and care-not to mention sheer life experience-that is so evident in this impressive . . .

‘I screwed, and here was the kid.’ With his new memoir set for release, Arnold gives his most revealing interview ever to The Daily Beast’s Laurence Leamer (Nepal 1965-67) http://elink.thedailybeast.com/4e555a9fe018bee76c33fcd3njql.264m  //UGmHSpsfcaKPqHJvCfd73>

When I finished my second novel,  The Book of Phoebe (the first was really bad), I could not get an agent because I hadn’t been published, and of course, I couldn’t get published because I didn’t have an agent.  Catch-22.  Then I read an interview in my local paper with a writer who mentioned that her editor was Kate Medina at Doubleday. I wrote a letter as compelling as I could make it to Medina saying I’d written a novel but couldn’t find an agent and mentioned the interview I’d read and asked if she’d read my novel. I heard back from her assistant, Anne Hukill, who asked me to send it to her.  I did.  She loved it.  She asked her colleague Adrian Zackheim to read it and he loved it, too.  (Adrian went on to edit Equator, a great travel book written by Thurston Clarke (Tunisia 1968). Anne was then  instructed by Medina to get all 12 senior . . .

Review of Thomas and Peter Weck’s The Lima Bear Stories: The Labyrinth The Lima Bear Stories: The Labyrinth Thomas and Peter Weck (Thomas Weck (Ethiopia 1965-67) Illustrated by Len DiSalvo Lima Bear Press, $15.95 30 pages 2012 Reviewed by Tony D’Souza (Ivory Coast 2000-02, Madagascar 2002-03) The Lima Bears are back in the fourth installment of the engaging series by father and son team Thomas and Peter Weck, along with illustrator Len DiSalvo. In The Labyrinth, the Weck’s lively, happy kingdom of Limalot, inhabited by the ever-friendly and teeny-tiny Lima Bears, is under-going regime change, a very timely story to tell in our election year! Good King Limalot Bear has grown too old for the throne, and having no son, he naturally decides to pass his scepter to his fair daughter, the lovely and kind Princess Belinda Bean. But not so fast, says the scheming Mean ol’Bean, a militaristic tiny . . .

[ Tony D’Souza  (Ivory Coast 2000-02, Madagascar 2002-03) talks about “Eyes Wide Shut,” his piece on the Nadel Ponzi scheme in the September issue of the Sarasota Magazine. You can read his article on Nadel’s Ponzi scheme in Longform.org alongside articles in The New Yorker, New York Times, and New York Review of Books. Longform.org was picked as one of the best websites of 2012 by Time.] http://longform.org/ An interview by Megan McDonald on the Sarasota Magazine blog: When we first met Tony D’Souza,  38, back in 2005, he was waiting tables at the old Metro Café on Osprey Avenue and about to publish his first novel, Whiteman, based on his experience with the Peace Corps in Africa’s Cote d’Ivoire. Fast forward a few years and D’Souza has gone on to publish two more novels and written for the New Yorker, Playboy, Outside and Esquire, among others; he’s also been featured . . .

The Measure of a Dream;  A Peace Corps Story by Lora Parisien Begin (Tunisia 1988–91) A Peace Corps Book $16.96 356 pages July 2012 Reviewed by Kitty Thuermer (Mali 1977-79) When I sat down to read Lora Parisien Begin’s charming Peace Corps/Tunisia memoir, The Measure of a Dream, it was all about the misadventures of Bridget Jones in the Casbah — she who tripped her way through the labyrinthian back alleys of Islam — fueled by mint tea and self-deprecating naivite. The soundtrack, of course, was the crackling call to prayer — deafeningly delivered by loudspeaker at 4 a.m. Yet two days into my read, I was shocked to hear the news that all hell had broken loose in her beloved host country. That Tunisia — famous for igniting the flame of the Arab Spring, yes — was now aflame with a darker anti-American purpose, as evidenced by the carcasses of . . .

Bruce Trimble (Gambia 1979-81) did this YouTube book trailer for his wife’s new book Tubob. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FO2qFXiPyTQ&feature=youtu.be Tubob: Two Years in West Africa with the Peace Corps by Mary E. Trimble (Gambia 1979-81) ShelterGraphics $15.95 320 pages 2012

Talking to Eric Kiefer by Larry Lihosit (Honduras 1975-77) Lihosit: Why write a novel about the Peace Corps instead of a memoir? Kiefer: Memoir often tends to force a reader into certain prejudgments about what the book needs to be. Memoirs happened. The difference between a memoir and a novel is plot development and this book is about as far as I could push the line. There were experiences/settings/characters I wanted to portray that quite simply, didn’t happen. There’s something to be said about that holy connection between the real and the imagined. That’s the power and beauty of a novel, after all. Lihosit: You have written non-fiction. Did you find fiction more difficult? Why? Kiefer: I’ve always found that writing nonfiction is much more confining and claustrophobic, but I tend to sweat more when I write fiction. When I was working as a newspaper reporter, the stories were always laid . . .

The Soft Exile By Eric Kiefer (Mongolia 2005-06) Gentleman Tree Publishing. $12.94 220 pages 2012 Reviewed by Lawrence F. Lihosit (Honduras, 1975-77) Fans of a young Richard Brautigan (Confederate General in Big Sur) and J.D. Salinger (Catcher In the Rye) will appreciate this debut novel told in first-person. Like the former, there are mini-chapters and understated gallows humor. As is true with the latter, the book also includes cynicism by the privileged. It is also a very different fictional Peace Corps portrait than those written by pioneer volunteers years ago which leads to the question: how and why have we changed? For other aspiring Peace Corps volunteer novelists, take note. This is a commercially published book. Mr. Kiefer is among the elite ten percent of former volunteers who found a commercial publisher and I salute him. Hopefully, this is the first of many books that he will write. In this . . .

Peter Lefcourt (Togo 1962-64) takes on the French in his New Novel! If you love to hate the French and/or hate to love show business, this just may be the book for you:  Five Americans on the loose at the Cannes Film Festival. Merde happens. Big time.  The French Ministry of Culture tried unsuccessfully to get a restraining order against the publication of this book.  Now finally available for your Kindle or iPad is Le Jet Lag! What the book is about: As I wrote, five Americans on the loose at the Cannes Film Festival: the ambitious intern resolved to sleep her way to the bottom; the actor who winds up spending seven nights in different beds; the publicist whose job is to make sure the studio’s film does not win an award; the gay head of publicity involuntarily channeling Golda Meir; and, back for an encore (after The Deal . . .

Tubob: Two Years in West Africa with the Peace Corps by Mary E. Trimble (Gambia 1979-81) ShelterGraphics $15.95 320 pages 2012 Reviewed by Barbara E. Joe (Honduras 2000-03) Just what does “Tubob” in this book’s title mean? Author Mary Trimble and her husband Bruce, Volunteers sent to The Gambia in 1979, discovered it means stranger or white person. But they didn’t remain strangers for long, though pregnant women shielded their eyes from them to prevent the birth of albino babies. The two were soon given Gambian names; Mary’s was Mariama. They quickly became valued members of their community, she working in health, he in digging wells. By planting a garden and raising chickens themselves, they showed local people how to augment their diet, also debunking a belief that eating eggs causes stupidity. Reportedly newlyweds, I first envisioned them as a young couple, only later learning they were already in their . . .