Search Results for “Eres Tu” – Page 104

A Bigger, Better Peace Corps Says Director Aaron Williams

Nov 24 2009

Not sure if anyone reads Parade Magazine (but you’ll read anything on a vacation!) and last week while in Key West I picked up a copy and there was Aaron Williams being interviewed (briefly, only three questions) in the IntelligenceReport page of this Sunday newspaper supplement. There was the standard (no brainer) question: Who can join the Peace Corps? But the reporter then asked: Why is the Peace Corps roughly half the size it was in 1966? Aaron replied how funding has gone “up and down” but the Peace Corps now has bipartisan support in Congress “plus the administration’s commitment to expand.” He sums up, “We plan to add a couple thousand volunteers over the next two years.” Of course, President Obama has already said the Peace Corps should double in size, but then every president has said that and it never happens. Aaron made one interesting closing comment. He was saying how “tech-savvy” PCVs are and that there was . . .

Wake Up, Portland. There Is Work To Do!

Nov 22 2009

Ellen Urbani (Guatemala 1991-93) is working with Saturday Academy and Mercy Corps to convene a week-long camp (June 28-July 2, 2010) in Portland, Oregon, designed to introduce high school students to the issues and demands of careers in the field of international aid and development work. This week-long immersion camp will combine traditional and hands-on learning, public service opportunities, and the mentoring process to motivate participants toward further study or volunteerism in global relief efforts. Ellen is currently looking for instructors (8hrs/day for one week, paid positions) to teach each of these modules: Shelter, Water/Sanitation, Small Business, Global Health, Appropriate Technologies. She is also looking for experts/guest lecturers (from 1-8hrs/day, one day, unpaid) to cover topics of interest and application to the entire group, including: Action Planning: Designing interventions, rallying local support, project implementation, fund-raising Leadership Development: How to garner local buy-in, identify and collaborate with local/indigenous leaders, make best . . .

Peace Corps Director Aaron Williams Speaks!

Nov 11 2009

This is an interview done in South Africa by Andre van Wyk for allAfrica.com that appeared today, November 11. Aaron Williams, the new Peace Corps Director, was on a world tour visiting Peace Corps countries on one of those famous ‘all/see’ trip all PC/W staff take. I thought that you’d like to see what the Director is thinking, two or so months into his new job. The Obama administration earlier this year named a former United States Peace Corps volunteer, Aaron S. Williams, as the program’s new director. The Peace Corps, which will soon celebrate its 50th anniversary, draws thousands of Americans who want to work abroad and under the new administration, it is looking at its areas of focus and how best to continue implementing its programs most effectively. Williams spoke with AllAfrica during a visit to South Africa. Is this your first visit to Africa since your appointment, . . .

RPCV John Givens on literary journals, part two

Nov 06 2009

In late Septemer of this year, TriQuarterly, one of the most respected print literary journals, announced that it was converting to an online format. TriQuarterly’s blog currently offers subscribers a chance to purchase the “last three issues of TriQuarterly in print.” It’s only one journal; but this feels like a big deal, particularly in today’s world of Kindles and eBooks and POD. Evergreen Review, one of the greatest and most provocative of literary journals, began life as a trade paperback, shifted to glossy magazine format, and ceased publication in 1973. In 1998, it was resurrected as an online journal and pushes ahead today with new content as well as reprinting great work from its past. For the sake of this discussion, we can divide the world of literary journals into three permutations, with some overlap: Print journals that require hard-copy submissions by snail-mail. The old stalwarts we’ve always known include: . . .

RPCV John Givens on Literary Journals — part one

Nov 05 2009

John Givens (Korea 1967–69) was born in Northern California, got his BA in English literature at the California State University Fresno and his MFA in creative writing at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, University of Iowa, where he was a Teaching/Writing Fellow. After his Peace Corps tour, he studied language and art in Kyoto for four years; and he worked as a writer & editor in Tokyo for eight years. For fifteen years, Givens was a creative director and branding consultant for advertising agencies in New York then San Francisco. He has published three novels in the US: Sons of the Pioneers, A Friend in the Police, and Living Alone; short stories have appeared in various journals. His non-fiction publications include A Guide to Dublin Bay: Mirror to the City and Irish Walled Towns, both published by The Liffey Press in Dublin. He is currently finishing The Plantain Manner, a long novel set in . . .

RPCV Mike Meyer Interviewed “Live” On Galleycat

Nov 04 2009

If you are at all interested in writing and publishing, check out mediabistro.com and also the video reporting done by Jason Boog (Guatemala 2000-02) who works for Galleycat and (mailer@mediabistro.com). Jason has a piece up today, plus video, of Mike Meyer (China 1995-97) where Mike is saying, “I think it’s usually a good time to write a book when you go to the library or the bookstore and the book you want to read isn’t there.” Mike, as you know, was one of the ten writers honored at the 25th annual Whiting Writers’ Award last week. GalleyCat prowled the aisles of the Award winners dinner interviewing a number of the winners about their writing lives, the recession, and the future of literature. The ten recipients each took home a $50,000 award for their literary efforts. Listen and look at Mike talk about writing, and read what Jason has to say. You’ve got to love . . .

Looking For An Agent? The “P” List

Nov 03 2009

Pabley, Sonia Gersh Agency 41 Madison Ave., floor 33 New York, NY 10010 Memoir, Advice/Relationships, Mystery/Crime, info@gershla.com http://www.gershagency.com Panettieri, Gina Talcott Notch 276 Forest Rd. Milford CT 06460 Advice/Relationships, Parenting, Children’s, Business/Investing/Finance gpanettieri@talcottnotch.net www.talcottnotch.net Pantano, Merry Blanche C. Gregory, Inc. 2 Tudor City Place New York, NY 10017 General Fiction, General Non-Fiction, Reference, Religion/Spiritual bcgliteraryagent@aol.com www.bcgliteraryagency.com Park, Theresa Park Literary Group 270 Lafayette St., suite 1504 New York, NY 10012 Biography Parkliterary.com Parks, Richard Richard Parks Agency 138 East 16th St., Suite 5B New York, NY 10003 Mystery/Crime, Narrative Fiction rp@richardparksagency.com www.richardparksagency.com Paul, Alexia Joy Harris Literary Agency, Inc. 156 Fifth Avenue, Suite 617 New York, NY 10010 General Fiction, Reference, History, gen.office@jhlitagent.com www.globallit.com Peterson, Laura Blake Curtis Brown Ltd. 10 Astor Place New York, NY 10003 Thriller LBP@CBltd.com Picard, Alison J. Alison J. Picard, Literary Agent P.O. Box 2000 Cotuit MA 02635 How-To, Children’s ajpicard@aol.com Pinkus, Samuel Mcintosh and Otis, . . .

Togo RPCV George Packer has a new book

Nov 02 2009

Interesting Times: Writing from a Turbulent Decade by George Packer (Togo 1982–83) is published this month from Farrar Straus Giroux. It comes out on November 17, but the book is in stores now. Packer is a staff writer for The New Yorker and the author of The Assassins’ Gate: America in Iraq, which was named one of the ten best books of 2005 by The New York Times Book Review. He is the author of two novels, The Half Man and Central Square, and two works of nonfiction, The Village of Waiting, which is his Peace Corps memoir, and Blood of the Liberals, which won the 2001 Robert F. Kennedy Book Award and the 2001 Peace Corps Writers Paul Cowan Non-Fiction Award. His play Betrayed, based on a New Yorker article, won the 2008 Lucille Lortel Award for Best Off-Broadway Play. His reporting has also won four Overseas Press Club . . .

November RPCV New Books

Nov 01 2009

Interesting Times Writing from a Turbulent Decade by George Packer (Togo 1982-83) Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $28.00 409 pages November 2009 The Incarnation of CatMan Billy By Will Jordan (Senegal & Liberia 1971-72) The Press of Light, $12.99 September 2009 The Broken Teaglass By Emily Arsenault (South Africa 2004-06) Delacorte Press, $25.00 370 pages September 2009 By Heart: Reflections of a Rust Belt Bard (poetry) by Philip Brady (Zaire 1980-82) University of Tennessee Press, $29.95 180 pages November 2008 Joe & Azat By Jesse Lonergan (Turkmenistan 2005-07) ComicsLit, $10.95 95 pages November 2009 At the Table of Want (A Novel) by Larry Kimport (Malaysia 1980-82) Foremost Press, $16.95 338 pages October 2009

RPCV Lawrence Lihosit Launches Campaign To Save Peace Corps Books

Oct 27 2009

This is a letter that Larry Lihosit, who served in Honduras, is sending around to congress and the senate seeking to establish at the Library of Congress a Special Collection of Peace Corps books. He is particularly interested in books that are self-published and have limited circulation. This is a very good idea, I think. We need ‘places’ where researchers someday might turn to find out who, what, where, when and how of the Peace Corps. With the disappearance of books in our world, the Library of Congress is a good location. Or as Hemingway said, “a clear, well lighted place.” Larry wrote me: “I am taking this opportunity to continue my campaign to cajole for the creation of a Peace Corps Experience Collection at the Library of Congress. I sent the attached letter to my congressman, Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Boxer, Dianne Feinstein, and Barack Obama. I intend to resend it . . .

And The Winner Of The Best Memoir From Africa Is!

Oct 16 2009

Naming the best memoir by an RPCV who served in Africa has stirred some interest. A number of first rate books have been cited, from Mike Tidwell (Zaire 1985-87) The Ponds of Kalambayi: An African Sojourn published in 1991, to Kris Holloway’s Monique and the Mango Rains that came out in 2006. What we are seeking is a memoir of the Peace Corps experience, not fiction. Readers seem not to remember a few other good books published by RPCVs. Jason Carter’s account, for example, of being a PCV in South Africa entitled Power Lines published by National Geographic Books in 2002, or Jeanne D’Haem’s (Somalia 1968-70) charming The Last Camel: True Stories About Somalia published by Red Sea Press in 1997, or even Mango Elephants in the Sun by Susana Herrera (Cameroon 1992-94) put out by Shambhala Publications in 1999. Selecting the best book is not easy. Very few readers remember the late Tim McLaurin (Tunisia . . .

Review: San Francisco Tenderloin

Oct 14 2009

Will Siegel is a technical writer who also writes fiction and who also served in Ethiopia with Marian Haley Beil and myself back in the day (1962–64). Will went to San Francisco State for his masters degree in creative writing and lived there during the summer of love (and lots more) before moving to New York City, and next to Boston where he has lived for the last twenty plus years. Then and now, he is a fine writer and one of the sweetest guys we know and here he reviews Larry Wonderling’s (PC Staff: COR Puerto Rico 1968–70; Afghanistan 1970-73; early ’80s Central and Latin America; late ’80s Africa) book on a tender and tough spot in San Francisco. San Francisco Tenderloin: True Stories of Heroes, Demons, Angels, Outcasts & a Psychotherapist Expanded Second Edition By Larry Wonderling, Ph.D. Cape Foundation Publications 415 Pages $24.95 Reviewed by William Siegel (Ethiopia 1962-64) Larry . . .

RPCV Florence Reed — Living The Third Goal, Saving The World

Oct 08 2009

Recently the National Peace Corps Association hustled some money from the Gates Foundation and started up Africa Rural Connect. ARC began its operation by asking the question: “Where should development agencies spend their money? That’s what you, as a returned Peace Corps volunteer, can help us figure out.” Well, ARC — why don’t you ask Florence Reed? Take a look and see how this woman has already achieved in Central America what you want to do. This is just one RPCV who with little organizational help (or funding from Gates!) has managed to establish Sustainable Harvest International (SHI). In her bio on the SHI website it says that Florence Reed (Panama 1991–93) believes that when people work together, things change for the better. In 1997, she founded Sustainable Harvest International, a nonprofit organization dedicated to working with rural Central American communities to implement sustainable land-use practices. As president of the organization, Florence spends her time guiding SHI forward . . .

RPCVs — Keep Writing Poetry!

Oct 02 2009

In the October 22, 2009 issue of The New York Review of Book there is an interesting foreword written by Charles Simic, our recent Poet Laureate, to his review of Nicholson Baker’s new novel, The Anthologist. Simic makes a few comments about poetry in America that all of us should take note of. [Yes, I know I ended the sentence with a preposition.] While a recent National Endowment for the Arts study says that reading poetry continues to decline, especially among women, Simic sees poetry, and reading poetry, alive and well in America. He mentioned that today there are at least 27,000 blogs on the Web devoted to poetry (I’m not sure we were counted among the many) and “countless on-line poetry magazines.” Simic also mentioned that he was one of twenty poets who were part of last summer’s Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival. This festival drew 19,000 to a . . .

Review: ROCK WORN BY WATER by Florence Chard Dacey

Sep 30 2009

Ecuador RPCV Marnie Mueller is the author of Green Fires, which won the 1995 Maria Thomas Fiction Award and an American Book Award. Her other novels are The Climate of the Country and My Mother’s Island. The latter has been optioned for a feature film, the screenplay of which, she has signed on to write. She has recently completed a new novel, Don’t Think Twice. Here she reviews: Rock Worn By Water by Florence Chard Dacey (Nigeria 1963–65) Austin: Plain View Press March 2009 77 pages $14.20 Reviewed by Marnie Mueller (Ecuador 1963–65) Florence Chard Dacey had endeared herself to me before I even opened her book for review. Take note, fellow writers! Her accompanying letter was exemplary in its restraint, simply stating the facts of publication (date, price, and ISBN) and that she as a former volunteer would like her collection to be listed and considered for review . . .

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