Peace Corps writers

[I picked this up off the Internet, a recent interview with award winning poet, Susan Rich (Niger 1984-86) done by Seattle pi.  Susan’s new collection of poems, The Alchemist’s Kitchen, will be published on May 1, 2010.] The Writer’s Block: Living a Writer’s Life As I’m sure you all know, it’s National Poetry Month, and I was happy to catch up with a very busy Susan Rich to ask her about her newly released book, The Alchemist’s Kitchen (White Pine 2010). Also the author of Cures Include Travel and The Cartographer’s Tongue ~ Poems of the World, Susan has received awards from PEN USA, The Times Literary Supplement, and Peace Corps Writers. Recent poems have appeared in the Antioch Review, Harvard Review, Poetry International and TriQuarterly. Q: In The Alchemist’s Kitchen, you write about many topics, among them love and loss, journeys and transformation – when did this collection begin . . .

The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation announced today that in its eighty-sixth annual competition for the United States and Canada the Foundation has awarded 180 Fellowships to artists, scientists, and scholars. Peace Corps Writers Tom Bissell and Mike Meyer have both been awarded Guggenheims for 2010.  They were selected from a group of some 3,000 applicants. Tom Bissell (Uzbekistan 1996-97)  is now an  Assistant Professor of English, Portland State University and will use his Guggenheim grant to research ” The evolution of the common perception of the Twelve Apostles.” Michael Meyer (China 1995-97),  from Golden Valley, Minnesota, is writing a book on ” Contemporary Manchuria and the Han Chinese farmers.” Guggenheim Fellowships grants are given for a minimum of six months and a maximum of twelve months. The average amount of grant money is approximately $50,000.  No special conditions are attached to the grants, and Fellows may spend their grant funds in any manner they deem . . .

Published author John Sherman (Nigeria/Biafra 1966–67; Malawi 1967–68; staff: PC/Washington 1970–71, 1975–77; PC/Ghana 1971–73) has a multi-faceted publishing company in Indiana that offers editorial services, and assists others publish and market their books. He also does pro bono work for charitable organizations, and keeps close attention on Africa, particularly Nigeria where he once was a PCV. Recently he returned to his first Peace Corps country and was kind enough to send me this “going home” account for our site. • IT’S ALWAYS A CHALLENGE to write about Nigeria. So much to say. Lamenting. Complaining. Defending. Speaking with sadness, rage, and excitement, often in the same conversation, hell, in the same sentence, about that wild, crazy, wonderful country. Nigeria and I have been in this dysfunctional, on-again/off-again relationship ever since I was a college senior. At times, I’ve tried to push it away, but failed, leaving it an integral part of . . .

Melanie Sumner (Senegal 1988–90)  published a wonderful collection of stories entitled Polite Society back in 1995 that are all set in Africa where she was a PCV. Next she wrote a novel,  The School of Beauty and Charm in 2002. Now she is back again with a new book, The Ghost of Milagro Creek. It will be published in July of this year. Melanie is a character worthy of her own novel. She received a BA in religious studies in 1986 from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill (where she studied with the late author Max Steele) and an MFA in creative writing in 1987 from Boston University. From 1988 to 1990 she was  in Senegal, and then she  lived in Alaska, New Mexico and Provincetown. She currently teaches creative writing at Kennesaw State University in Kennesaw, Georgia. Her first book, Polite Society,  won the Whiting Award, a regional award from Granta, and from PeaceCorpsWriters the . . .

In August a book comes out entitled Rich Boy, written by Sharon Pomerantz, a graduate of the University of Michigan’s MFA program who now teaches writing at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. It is a ‘novel of class, money, and love–spanning four decades in the life of a young man determined to escape his past.” It took Pomerantz ten years to write. She is not an RPCV, but there is a Peace Corps connection. (There is always a Peace Corps connection!)  The connection with RPCV writers is that in Ms. Pomerantz acknowledgements she mentions two Peace Corps books she used in her research, Living Poor: A Peace Corps Chronicle by Moritz Thomsen (Ecuador 1965-67) and P. David Searles (CD/Philippines 1971-74; PC/W 1974-76) The Peace Corps Experience: Change and Challenge, 1969-1976. David is one of our bloggers as you may know. The “Peace Corps” connection, however, is slight in this novel that the publisher (TWELVE) says on . . .

The New York Public Library’s Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers this month selected its twelfth class of Fellows: fourteen exceptional creative writers, independent scholars, and academics. The Fellows, will have full access to the unparalleled research collections and online resources of The New York Public Library’s landmark Stephen A. Schwarzman Building at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street. They will be in residence at the Center from September 2010 through May 2011, pursuing a wide range of book projects that will make extensive use of the Library’s holdings. One of the Fellows is our own Mike Meyer (China 1995-97) winner of the Paul Cowan Non-Fiction Award in 2009 for his first book The Last Days of Old Beijing: Life in the Vanishing Backstreets of a City Transformed which depicts the capital’s oldest neighborhood as the city remade itself for the 2008 Olympics. Also a Lowell Thomas Award winner for travel . . .

Reviewer Tony D’Souza’s novel, Whiteman, received the Peace Corps Writers Maria Thomas Prize for Fiction, and is loosely based on his Peace Corps service in an Ivory Coast headed for civil war. His second novel, The Konkans, is loosely based on his mother’s Peace Corps service in India from 1969 to 1970 where she met and married his father. Tony has contributed fiction and essays to The New Yorker, Playboy, Esquire, Outside, Granta, McSweeney’s, the O. Henry Awards, and Best American Fantasy, and is the recipient of two NEA Awards, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and gold and silver medals from the Florida Book Awards. He lives in Sarasota, FL, with his wife Jessyka and two young children, Gwen, 18 months, and Rohan, 6 months. The D’Souzas are spending the next few months traveling in India. Here, Tony reviews Paul Theroux’s A Dead Hand: A Crime in Calcutta. • A Dead Hand: . . .

Mohezin Tejani (Thailand 1979-80) is the author of  A Chameleon’s Tale: True Stories of a Global Refugee, and one of those hardy band of RPCVs writers who lives and works [mostly as travel writers] around the world, publishing on-line and in many travel magazines. He is also an award winning writer. For example.    The Solas Awards and BestTravelWriting.com were created by Travelers’ Tales,  a division of Solas House, Inc., a publisher of travel literature in Palo Alto, California. In 2004 they published their first collection of Best Travel Writing and in 2005 added The Best Women’s Travel Writing. In 2006 they launched the Solas Awards and BestTravelWriting.com to honor fine writing from the great travel storytellers.   Extraordinary stories about travel has been the cornerstones of their books since 1993. With the Solas Awards they honor writers whose work inspires others to explore. They look for the best stories about travel and the . . .

Reviewer Tony D’Souza’s first novel, Whiteman, received the Peace Corps Writers Maria Thomas Prize for Fiction, and is loosely based on his Peace Corps service in an Ivory Coast headed for civil war. His second novel, The Konkans, is loosely based on his mother’s Peace Corps service in India from 1969 to 1970 where she met and married his father. Tony has contributed fiction and essays to The New Yorker, Playboy, Esquire, Outside, Granta, McSweeney’s, the O. Henry Awards, and Best American Fantasy, and is the recipient of two NEA Awards, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and gold and silver medals from the Florida Book Awards. He lives in Sarasota, FL, with his wife Jessyka and two young children, Gwen, 18 months, and Rohan, 6 months. The D’Souzas are spending the next few months traveling in India. Here, Tony uses J.P. Jones’s novel A Witness in Tunis to offer advice to RPCVs . . .

He Is Legend, the anthology of short stories honoring author and screen writer Richard Matheson, edited by Christopher Conlon (Botswana 1988-90) has won the 2009 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Anthology. The book (which features stories by Stephen King, Joe Hill, Joe R. Lansdale, Whitley Strieber, F.Paul Wilson and many more) was available as a limited edition from Gauntlet Press and is now sold out — until the TOR hardcover trade edition comes out September 2010. HE IS LEGEND Edited by Christopher Conlon (Botswana 1988-90) Tor $25.99 352 pages September 2010

Aside from Peace Corps service in Honduras and years studying and working in Mexico, reviewer Lawrence F. Lihosit lived in a remote Alaskan fishing village for eighteen months. He has self-published seven books and as many pamphlets. Most recently, he partnered with iUniverse to publish Whispering Campaign; Stories from Mesoamerica and an expanded South  of the Frontera; A Peace Corps Memoir. The Long Trip Home By Brian D. Wyllie (Brazil, 1969-71) iUniverse, $12.95 99 pages January, 2009 Reviewed by Lawrence F. Lihosit (Honduras, 1975-77) Brian D. Wyllie offers a travelogue which portrays his youthful quest to see some of the world.  In so doing, he opens a peephole to an age when Americans were welcomed abroad and travel was possible for working men and women. We are also treated to a description of a world two generations ago: a classic example of witness literature. He also begins with introductory comments about . . .

South Pacific Survivor: In Samoa by Kevin Daley (1986–89) Novel Plus $16.95 440 pages December 2009 • When Things Get Dark: A Mongolian Winter’s Tale by Matthew Davis (Mongolia 2000–02) St. Martins Press $26.99 301 pages February 2010 • The Blind Visionary: Practical Lessons for Meeting Challenges on the Way to a More Fulfilling Life and Career by Doug Eadie (Ethiopia 1964–67) and Virginia Jacko Governance Edge $19.95 168 pages January 2010 • The Plum Rains and Other Stories by John Givens (Korea 1967-69) The Liffey Press $26.75 248 pages March 2010 • Peace Corps Syndrome by Ron Horton (Brazil 1966-68) Happenstance Books $15.00 180 pages 2007 • Stronghold (Young Adult) by Terri [Stephens] McIntyre (Pakistan 1963-65) Self Published $12.50 259 pages October 2009 • Click on the book cover or the bold book title to order from Amazon and Peace Corps Worldwide, an Amazon Associate, will receive a small . . .

Tony Zurlo (Nigeria 1965-67) who taught at Shijiazhuang Teachers College, Hebei Province, PRC, in 1990-91 and has written several book on  Nonwestern cultures and history, including three books about China, continues his essay on the writings of Peter Hessler (China 1996-98) III: Migration Throughout River Town and Oracle Bones Peter Hessler chronicles the lives of several of his former students. He highlights three in particular, William Jefferson Foster, Nancy Drew, and Emily (students often give themselves English names), as part of his “longitudinal study” of young adults in China dealing with the booming economy. Their experiences after graduation reinforce one of Hessler’s major themes in all three books: migration. As the economy expands and modernizes, young Chinese leave their home villages for the cities, especially the boomtowns in the eastern coastal regions. Hessler writes, “The whole country is moving in that direction” (7). The numbers are staggering: approximately 90 million . . .

The Peace Corps world has produced many fine writers over the past 50 years. The list is long, so I can’t name all the writers, and I won’t draw straws.  Tony Zurlo (Nigeria 1965-67), however, has been kind enough to send me his engaging and thoughtful essay on one of our real stars, Peter Hessler (China 1996-98), who has just published his third book on his host country.  This publication gives Tony, and all of us, a moment to look back on Hessler’s  books that, at least to me, demonstrate, once again, that the Peace Corps world of writers continues to produce a library of literature that enriches all are lives, whether we were in the Peace Corps or not. Tony has his own China experience. He taught at Shijiazhuang Teachers College, Hebei Province, PRC, in 1990-91. A writer, he has published several books on Nonwestern cultures and history, including three books about . . .

Aside from Peace Corps service in Honduras and years studying and working in Mexico, reviewer Lawrence F. Lihosit lived in a remote Alaskan fishing village for eighteen months. He has self-published seven books and as many pamphlets. Most recently, he partnered with iUniverse to publish Whispering Campaign; Stories from Mesoamerica. Within 60 days that same publisher will release his revised and expanded South of the Frontera; A Peace Corps Memoir. Both are available on Amazon.com. • When Things Get Dark: A Mongolian Winter’s Tale by Matthew Davis (Mongolia 2000—02) February, 2010 320 pages $31.99 Reviewed by Lawrence F. Lihosit (Honduras, 1975-77) Matthew Davis witnessed a quickly changing Mongolia. His memoir preserves a brief moment in history like a bee caught in amber. This is an honest memoir written in sparse American-lean. His journalism background served him well. Flown to Mongolia in the year 2000, a twenty-three year old Davis was . . .