Peace Corps writers

Tony D’Souza’s new novel is  Mule: A Novel of Moving Weight and he’ll be reading and taling about it  Tuesday, October 11 at Left Bank Books in St. Louis. His novel follows an underemployed writer whose pregnant girlfriend is laid off during the Great Recession. Unsure how to support a family, James and Kate move to a cheap cabin in northern California and become reacquainted with Kate’s high school friend, whose family grows premium weed. In the first two dozen pages of “Mule,” James learns how drug trafficking works. As a white guy, he doesn’t fit the official profiles. He details the tricks – and the dangers: “I read stories about people who’d been busted. I learned never to drive at night, to check that all my lights were working every time I stopped for gas, to stay with the flow of traffic. If a cop started to tail me, I would . . .

Tim Schell (CAR 1978–79) taught English in the town of M’Baiki and would write about it in his novel, The Drums of Africa (2007). He won the Mammoth Book Award for that book. He is also the co-author of Mooring Against the Tide:  Writing Fiction and Poetry (Prentice Hall, 2007) and the co-editor of the anthology A Writer’s Country (Prentice Hall, 2001). His fiction has been nominated for a Pushcart Award and he was the winner of the Martindale Award for Long Fiction. Today he teaches literature and writing at Columbia Gorge Community College in Hood River, Oregon. His new book, The Memoir of Jake Weedsong, was a  2010 Finalist for the AWP Award for the Novel. It has just come out from Serving House Books. The Memoir of Jake Weedsong is about Jake and Estuko Weedsong who are living a bucolic life on their vineyard in rural Oregon. Having been forced . . .

By ANDREA WEIGL – McClatchy Newspapers Nancie McDermott wants you to bake pies. But she doesn’t insist on a homemade pie crust. Her recipes don’t assume you own a Kitchen Aid standing mixer. Your pies do not have to turn out as pretty as the pictures in her latest cookbook, “Southern Pies: A Gracious Plenty of Pie Recipes from Lemon Chess to Chocolate Pecan.” “I would like to be the enemy of perfectionism,” McDermott says. “There’s so much of that in food.” Rather, she says, “let the beautiful thing inspire you, not intimidate you.” This is the 10th book from McDermott, of Chapel Hill, N.C., whose previous books include “Southern Cakes” and “Real Thai,” along with a series of cookbooks with quick-and-easy recipes. McDermott said being a Peace Corps volunteer led her to become a food writer. Raised in High Point, N.C., McDermott graduated from the University of North Carolina . . .

Hunting Lane Films, which earlier this year unveiled a development fund to option and develop movie projects in the $6 million-$20 million range, has optioned Tony D’Souza’s third novel, Mule. The Houghton Mifflin Harcourt title, released in September, is a contemporary story of one couple’s unlikely foray into “muling” marijuana as a way to survive the recession. Hunting Lane is topped by producer Jamie Patricof; its previous films include the Ryan Gosling-starrer Half Nelson, Derek Cianfrance’s Gosling-Michelle Williams starrer Blue Valentine last year and this year’s Sundance title Little Birds as well as Bravo TV’s The Rachel Zoe Project.

In Search of the Rose Notes by Emily Arsenault (South Africa 2004–06) William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins $14.99 (paperback) 369 pages July 2011 Reviewed by Susan O’Neill (Venezuela 1973-74) SIXTEEN-YEAR-OLD ROSE BANKS routinely babysat Nora and her friend Charlotte after school in 1990, while the sixth-graders waited for Charlotte’s parents to return from work. Then Rose vanished one afternoon in November, after walking Nora home. Had she run away? Or was the truth darker, an unspeakable violation of the peaceful New England town where they lived? Stricken by the knowledge that she had been the last person to see the charming, irreverent Rose before she disappeared, Nora reluctantly joined Charlotte in an attempt to solve the mystery, with help from Charlotte’s beloved Time/Life books on The Occult. It was a fruitless collaboration that ultimately derailed the girls’ childhood friendship. Fast-forward to May, 2006: Charlotte, who teaches in the same . . .

Mule: A Novel of Moving Weight by Tony D’Souza (D’Ivoire 2000–02, Madagascar 2002-03) from Booklist Blissfully happy in a new relationship and orbiting the trendy Austin party scene, James and Kate thought they had everything figured out. When the downturn not yet called the Great Recession and an unexpected pregnancy turn their world upside down, they cut costs by relocating to a tiny cabin in Northern California. There James is introduced to the underground world of primo-marijuana transport, in which the wages for a week’s cross-country driving could comfortably support a family for months. After the first payload turns into repeated California-Florida trips, James must decide how much time he’s willing to devote to his risky new career. Without glorifying or condemning the couple’s choices, D’Souza articulates the existential tensions that affect so many of America’s recession generation. His authorial voice is sharp and crisp, eschewing flowery prose for a . . .

On Thursday, September 22, 6 p.m. The Peace Corps writers in Washington, D.C. for the 50th Anniversary will meet up at the Black Rooster Pub, 1919 L Street (around the corner from the Peace Corps Office). The meeting place has been arranged by Peace Corps Writers, so if you are in D.C. drop by anytime after six p.m. I’ll be there!

Mule: A Novel of Moving Weight by Tony D’Souza (Ivory Coast 2000—02; Madagascar 2002—03) Mariner Books September 2011 304 pages $14.95 Reviewed by Mark Brazaitis (Guatemala 1990-93) AFTER YOU READ Tony D’Souza’s Mule: A Novel of Moving Weight, you’ll never approach late-night driving the same way again. You’ll imagine you’re carrying thousands of dollars worth of marijuana in your backseat. You’ll check your speed every five minutes. Am I driving too fast? Too slow? You’ll look for cops everywhere. It’s a testament to D’Souza’s talent that one feels such a powerful connection to James, the novel’s drug-running protagonist, even if the closest one might have come to his lifestyle is smoking an occasional joint in college  — or laughing at a soon-to-be president’s claim that he didn’t inhale. James isn’t in the illegal drug business by choice. In a troubled economy, his work (as a freelance writer) simply dried up. . . .

Robert Klein (Ghana 1961–63; 1974–75) is the winner of the Peace Corps Writers  Advancing the Mission Award for his book Being First: An Informal History of the Early Peace Corps that was published in 2010 by Wheatmark. Klein, who taught in Ghana for two years, was a member of the first Peace Corps group to go overseas. He then joined the Peace Corps program staff, serving in Kenya and in Ghana, where he was the country director from 1966 to 1968. Returning to the U.S., Klein had a career as a journeyman educator working in New Frontier and other experimental settings in the areas of remedial education and English as a second language. In 1974 he went back to Ghana, with his family, to serve another term as a Peace Corps Volunteer. Through the years he has remained close friends with his Ghanaian students whom he first taught in 1961, and has made periodic visits back to . . .

Mary Ellen Branan (Poland 1994–96) is the winner of the Peace Corps Writers Poetry Award for her collection, Weavings published in 2010 by First World Publishing. Dr. Branan lives in Bastrop, Texas, a small river town not far from Austin.  She plied a social worker career in Houston and Austin for 20 years, then returned to the graduate Creative Writing Program at the University of Houston, finishing in 1991.  As a PCV she was on the faculty of a English-teacher-training college in Pulawy, Poland, a cultural experience and a landscape that inspired a number of poems included those in Weavings. According to Karla K. Morton, Texas Poet Laureate in  2010: ” Poet Mary Branan’s work chronicles life, death, family, and even Poland, with a warmth and sophistication that only time and artistic sensitivity can bring.” Congratulations, Mary Ellen! Mary Ellen receives a special citation and a cash award from Peace Corps Writers – . . .

Stephanie Stuve-Bodeen (Tanzania 1989–90) is winner of the Peace Corps Writers’ Award for Best Children’s Writing for her book A Small Brown Dog with a Wet Pink Nose published in 2010 by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers and illustrated by Linzie Hunter. She is author of many highly  acclaimed books for young readers, including the young adult novel The Compound, as well as the Elizabeti’s Doll picture book series, which was inspired by her Peace Corps experience in Tanzania. Stephanie lives in Oregon with her husband, also an RPCV, and their two daughters. Donna Cardon of the Provo City Library, UT writes in the School Library Journal: Amelia wants a dog. When her persistent requests are repeatedly denied, she begins to pretend that she has a dog named “Bones,” and gradually her mother and father go along with the game. Then, when her pet “gets lost,” there is nothing for them to do but . . .

Don Gayton (Colombia 1966–69) is the winner of the Best Travel Book Award for Okanagan Odyssey: Journeys through Terrain, Terroir and Culture published in 2010 by Rocky Mountain Books. He is an ecologist and writer, whose twin interests focus on the dry landscapes of western North America. His writing includes award-winning books of popular non-fiction (Man Facing West, Okanagan Odyssey, Interwoven Wild, Kokanee, Landscapes of the Interior and The Wheatgrass Mechanism) as well as scientific articles dealing with grasslands and dry forests. Gayton served in the Peace Corps as an agricultural Volunteer in rural Colombia, and that experience had a profound influence on his life. He moved from the US to Canada during the Vietnam War years, and currently lives in British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley, where he works as an ecologist.  His awards include the Saskatchewan Writers Guild non-fiction award, the US National Outdoor Book Award, the Canadian Science Writers . . .

Matthew Davis (Mongolia 2000–02) is the winner of the Moritz Thomsen Peace Corps Writers Experience Award for his memoir  When Things Get Dark: A Mongolian Winter’s Tale published in 2010 by St. Martin’s Press.  Matt has just returned to the United States after a year as a Fulbright Fellow to Syria and Jordan.  He has an MFA in nonfiction writing from the University of Iowa and a Master’s in International Relations and Middle Eastern Studies from The Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Kristine Huntley in Booklist wrote: In 2000, at the age of 23, Davis leaves Chicago, his hometown, to travel to Mongolia to work as a teacher for the Peace Corps. Once he arrives in the small town of Tsetserleg, Davis moves into a ger, the circular tent that will be his home for the next two years, and gets to know the family whose land he is living on. He . . .

Cynthia Morrison Phoel (Bulgaria 1994–96) is the winner of the Maria Thomas Fiction Award for Cold Snap: Bulgaria Stories published in 2010 by Southern Methodist University Press. She  served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in a Bulgarian town not unlike the one in her stories. She holds degrees from Cornell University and the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers. Her work has appeared in The Missouri Review, The Gettysburg Review, Harvard Review, and Cerise Press. She lives near Boston with her husband and their three children. In the review of Cold Snap in Booklist Donna Seaman wrote: “Phoel’s first collection of stories and a novella incisively dramatizes the interlocked lives of the beleaguered denizens of a Bulgarian town. Phoel spent time in Bulgaria as a Peace Corps volunteer, but one gets no sense of an outsider looking in. Instead, she fully inhabits the minds of her jittery characters as they grapple with various . . .

Eric Lax(Micronesia 1966-68) is the winner of the 2010 Paul Cowan Non-Fiction Award for his book Faith, Interrupted: A Spiritual Journey published by Alfred A. Knopf in 2010. Lax, who was born in British Columbia and grew up in San Diego, is a graduate of  Hobart College and served in Truk (now Chuuk), Eastern Caroline Islands, Micronesia. In 1968-69 he was a Peace Corps Fellow, and later held several posts in Peace Corps/Washington Headquarters. He is the author of eight books. Other recent books include Conversations with Woody Allen: His Films, the Movies, and Moviemaking, and The Mold In Dr. Florey’s Coat: The Making of the Penicillin Miracle (a Los Angeles Times Best Book of 2004). Others include the international best seller Woody Allen: A Biography and Life and Death on 10 West (both New York Times Notable Books). His books have been translated into 18 languages. His articles have appeared in many publications, including The . . .