Search Results For -2009 books

Renewable: One Woman’s Search for Simplicity, Faithfulness, and Hope Eileen Flanagan (Botswana 1984-86) She Writes Press March 2015 186 pages $16.95 (paperback), $9.95 (Kindle) Reviewed by Julie R. Dargis (Morocco 1984-87) • When Eileen Flanagan arrived in Botswana in 1984, “the same year that Apple introduced the Macintosh and Daryl Hannah starred in Splash with Tom Hanks,” global warming had yet to hit the global scene. Yet, that same year, as I arrived to my Peace Corps site in the south of Morocco, the population had been experiencing a severe drought. So much so, when the rains finally came with abandon, my students rejoiced for days. Twenty-five years later, as a result of global warming, Flanagan would be reporting similar news from her village in Botswana. Flanagan had entered the village of Bobonong atop a dusty road, rattling past round huts of mud and dung in a rusted-out Ford pickup . . .

AJAR Contemporaries a division of PFP Publications announces the reissue of Roland Merullo’s memoir/travelogue The Italian Summer: Golf, Food, and Family at Lake Como. First published in 2009, The Italian Summer has been called “a colorful, affectionate tour of Italian landscape and food” by Kirkus Magazine and “simply a wonderful read” byBookReporter, it is a charming narrative of a glorious summer of golfing, eating, and learning how to slow down and enjoy life. The best-selling author of Breakfast with Buddha, Golfing with God, Revere Beach Boulevard and others, combines two of his greatest passions – travel and golf – in this humorous and poignant look at Mediterranean life. Feeling a little burnt out by the frantic pace of life in the United States, Merullo decided to rent an Italian villa near the shore of Lake Como in a small town called Mezzegra. He arrived in Italy with his wife and two young daughters determined to . . .

Talking to Phillip Margolin Among famous and successful RPCV writers no one has a wider readership and has been more financially successful than mystery writer Phillip Margolin (Liberia 1965-67) who came home from Africa to attend New York University School of Law, then found his way to Portland, Oregon where from 1972 to 1996 he was in private practice specializing in criminal defense at the trial and appellate levels. Since 1996, however, Margolin has been writing full-time. The majority of his novels have been New York Times bestsellers. In addition to all this, his daughter grew up to become a Peace Corps Volunteer. After turning this site’s spotlight on Phillip Margolin recently, I spoke to him about his career and his bestselling novels, how he writes, and why. • Phillip, tell us something about yourself. Well, I grew up in New York City and Levittown, New York.  I graduated from . . .

Michael Meyer talks about his new book, In Manchuria: A Village called Wasteland and the Transformation of Rural China, with Ian Frazier. Meyer’s account of the time he spent living and teaching school in the rice-farming community of Wasteland, in China’s rural Northeast, weaves together history, politics, and personal lives in a vivid drama of loss and change. Michael Meyer first went to China in 1995 with the Peace Corps. He received a Whiting Writers’ Award for nonfiction after publishing his first book, The Last Days of Old Beijing: Life in the Vanishing Backstreets of a City Transformed. He has also held a Guggenheim Fellowship.  His stories have appeared in The New York Times, Time, Smithsonian, Sports Illustrated, Slate, the Financial Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, and on This American Life. He worked on In Manchuria: A Village Called Wasteland and the Transformation of Rural China while in residence at the Cullman Center in 2010-2011. A staff writer for The New . . .

Finding Neguinho by David Randle (Brazil 1964-66; Brazil staff 1967–69); with illustrations by Mary M. Jones Page Publishing June 2014 256 pages $25.95 (paperback), $9.99 (Kindle) Reviewed by Barbara E. Joe (Honduras 2000-03) • In 1964, after college graduation, newlyweds David and Inga Randle, both from Indiana farming families, find themselves far from home in the Peace Corps in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso, “bigger than Texas,” a region sharing traits with the American Wild West . . . with disagreements being settled through the barrel of a gun. Also, a military coup has just occurred in Brazil, but is little felt in that remote world. Neighbors call the author “Dr. David,” — as, indeed, Hondurans still call me “Doctora Bárbara” on my annual visits there. He is permitted to drive a Peace Corps 4 x 4 Willy’s  station wagon, and often gives people a lift — who are helpful when . . .

The Peace Corps Writers  Publisher’s Special Book Award recognizes outstanding publications from the Peace Corps community, and The Power of Latino Leadership: Culture, Inclusion, and Contribution by Juana Bordas (Chile 1964–66) is such a book. Recently Juana’s book also received The Nautilus Book Award that recognizes “better books for a better world.” The Nautilus Award was established in 1998 and is considered a “major” book award. CONGRATULATIONS to Juana Bordas for winning the  2014 Peace Corps Writers Publisher’s Special Award for the best book published in 2013.  Juana receives a small cash award, and a certificate. A long-time Latina leader, Juana is a founder of Denver’s Mi Casa Resource Center and was the first President of the National Hispana Leadership Institute. In 2009, she was named Colorado Unique Woman of the Year by the Denver Post and the Colorado Women’s Foundation. The book highlights Bordas’ own experiences and includes the voices of 9 . . .

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 . . .

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 . . .

. 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 . . .