Search Results For -2009 books

The Unofficial Peace Corps Handbook by Travis Hellstrom (Mongolia 2008–11) Advance Humanity Publishing 2010 234 pages $15.95 paperback Review by Lawrence F. Lihosit (Honduras, 1975-77) HELLSTROM’S GUIDE IS OF THE MYSTICAL GENRE, much like Zen In the Art of Archery, for this is a book about acceptance. Unlike recent guides which outline application, training, service and homecoming, this book offers very few lists. It offers comfort. “The happiest Peace Corps Volunteers are the ones who make peace,” explains the author. Be forewarned that if you are concerned about our voracious appetite for paper and the disappearance of forests, the format might disturb you: it contains 97 blank pages (more than one third of the book). The blank pages are for volunteers to write on. Of the pages with print, many contain less than 20 lines like a poetry book. I imagine that the author’s intent is akin to poetry — . . .

In 2000, a man in Moab, Utah left his life savings — $30 — in a phone booth and walked away. Twelve years later that man — Daniel Suelo — enjoys an apparently full and sane life without money, credit, barter or government hand-outs, as he fulfills a vision of the good life inspired by his spiritual guides: Jesus, Buddha and wandering Hindu monks. Suelo, whose real name is Daniel Shellabarger, is an RPCV who served in the village of El Hato in the Andes, Ecuador (1988-89) as a health PCV. A friend of Suelo’s, former river guide and now writer Mark Sundeen, has written a book that traces the path and the singular idea that led Suelo to his extreme lifestyle. In The Man Who Quit Money, Sundeen delivers a myth for our times — one that happens to be a true story . The Man Who Quit Money . . .

The online arm of the Chico (CA) Enterprise Record published a review of Rob Davidson’s (Crenada 1990–92) new short story collection. Biblio File: New collection of short stories from a Chico writer By Dan Barnett Posted: 3/11/2012 at chicoer.com Rob Davidson teaches American literature and creative writing at Chico State University. Born in Duluth, Minnesota, he studied at Beloit College and Purdue University, then traveled to the Eastern Caribbean to serve with the U.S. Peace Corps. His new collection of short stories, “The Farther Shore” ($16 in paperback from Bear Star Press in Cohasset, takes its inspiration from the sayings of the Buddha: “Go beyond / This way or that way, / To the farther shore / Where the world dissolves / And everything becomes clear.” The nine stories in the book, beautifully designed by Bear Star’s Beth Spencer, bring their central characters to a place that threatens dissolution. They . . .

Interview by Lawrence F. Lihosit (Honduras 1975–77) WHILE MOST OF US STRUGGLE with our own Peace Corps memoir, Jane Albritton undertook a herculean task: to gather enough Peace Corps personal experience essays to fill a multi-volume anthology. After four years of intense work, she completed the task in 2011 to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Peace Corps’ inception. The four volumes include more than 200 essays that describe the Peace Corps Experience in 88 of the 139 nations served during the past half century. The principal and founder of a writing and editing firm (as well as a university writing instructor), Jane began the Peace Corps at 50 Project with the posting of a very unusual website and an all-call for personal experience essay submissions. As the series editor, she recruited editors, oversaw editing, negotiated publication, supervised formatting, cover design and finally manages marketing. What on earth inspired . . .

Interview: Richard Tillotson, Author of Acts of God While On Vacation By April Pohren, BLOGCRITICS.ORG Published 09:00 p.m., Sunday, February 12, 2012 Richard Tillotson has been a Peace Corps volunteer, a playwright in New York, a copywriter in Hawaii, and is a relative of an English Lord, all of which helped him write Acts of God While on Vacation, a National Semi-Finalist for the 2009 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award and named “Hawaii’s best fiction book of 2011” by The Honolulu Star-Advertiser. He works in Honolulu and vacations in Washington DC. Please tell us a bit about your book and what you hope readers take away from reading it. The novel begins with a death threat received by a philandering general manager of a lavish Hawaii resort, jumps to an anthropologist researching headhunters in the jungles of Borneo, then to a demonic, scandal-mongering paparazzo in New York, and on to a gorgeous, party-loving . . .

A Writer Writes Whenever I want to annoy Peace Corps writers I tell them that P.F. Kluge Micronesia (1969-70) is the smartest writer to serve as a PCV. That gets them. They, of course, if they know anything of Kluge’s work, can’t really dismiss my claim. Paul Frederick Kluge has had a long and illustrious career as a novelist, academic, travel writer, journalist and lecturer. Not to list all of his lengthy CV, (which runs a full five pages) let just note a few of his many accomplishments. Early in his career, when he was a young editor at Life magazine, he wrote a story for them that became the film, Dog Day Afternoon. He next wrote a novel that became the 1983 film of the same name, Eddie and the Cruisers. In 1992 he wrote his “Peace Corps” memoir, The Edge of Paradise: America in Micronesia, published by Random . . .

The Orawan Poems by Gerry Christmas (Thailand 1973–76; Western Samoa 1976–78) The Yuletide Press 148 pages $14.95 (paperback) 2011 Reviewed by Tony Zurlo (Nigeria 1964–65) THE LOVE EXPRESSED by Gerry Christmas in The Orawan Poems, for Orawan, one of his students in Thailand, embarrasses and shames me. Can there be such perfect love in this life? In these poems, Christmas reveals that for him this romantic Shangri -La of pristine love between man and woman does exist. Sometime in the future, according to Christmas, Orawan will understand the inevitability that she and Christmas will fuse into one hallowed bond. He writes as if it is predetermined. Unfortunately for Christmas, he must continue to make sense of the physical time and distance of separation because Orawan refuses to submit to him spiritually. Instead, she commits to a clandestine Thai rebellion that Christmas labels as “communist” (123). However, Christmas is convinced she . . .

Back to Pakistan: A Fifty-Year Journey by Leslie Noyes Mass (Pakistan 1962–64) Rowman and Littlefield Publishers $32.95 212 pages (paperback) 2011 Reviewed by  David Day (Kenya 1965–66; India 1967–68) IN THIS ACCOUNT of her initial Peace Corps assignment in rural western Pakistan from 1962 to 1964, and a return visit forty-seven years later, in 2009, Leslie Mass gives us tightly-focused access to the lives of women and a range of attempts to educate them in arguably one of the world’s most dangerous countries. It’s a glimpse not often seen in terrorism-haunted media coverage of this troublesome, strategically important Muslim nation. As part of her titular “journey,” we are taken — with the aid of numerous excerpts from letters written to George (a close friend and later, husband), and verbatim transcripts from tape recordings of conversations — from the dusty alleys of small villages to the snow-capped peaks of the Karakoram . . .

By Jason Boog on October 11, 2011 3:47 PM published in GalleyCat Before publishing his new novel Mule, novelist Tony D’Souza made the toughest decision a writer ever has to make. He stopped working on a novel after years of work and started from scratch with a new book. In a short essay, D’Souza explained why he made this difficult decision, offering some important advice for all aspiring writers. Last week the production team behind Blue Valentine optioned the movie rights to Mule. D’Souza wrote: “The day we closed the deal on my first novel Whiteman (2006), my agent Liz Darhansoff gave me this advice, ‘Go to your room and start your next book.’ I took her up on it. I know that for many authors, the second novel is the hardest, but after a few months of failed starts, I quickly broke into the opening pages of The Konkans . . .

By John Valeri, Hartford Books Examiner Arsenault is the author of two novels, and will be appearing at R.J. Julia on Thursday evening.   Her literary debut, The Broken Teaglass, was selected by the New York Times as a Notable Crime Book of 2009.  In addition to her forays into fiction, she has worked as a lexicographer, an English teacher, and a Peace Corps volunteer in South Africa.  Though Arsenault now lives in Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts, she grew up in Connecticut. Her newest, In Search of the Rose Notes (William Morrow, $14.99), was released last month.  Publishers Weekly gave the book a starred review and noted it to be “an emotionally complex and deeply satisfying read.”  Meanwhile, fellow author Alafair Burke praised, “Feels like a beautifully written secret, whispered into the reader’s ear…This is a smart, creative, and utterly charming novel.” Eleven-year-olds Nora and Charlotte were best friends. When their teenage . . .

Emily Arsenault (South Africa 2004-06) first novel, The Broken Teaglass, was selected by The New York Times as a Notable Crime Book of 2009. She has now just published In Search of the Rose Notes, a psychological mystery about broken friendship and the unease of revisiting adolescent memories. Emily writes, “My initial intention was to write a suspense novel that dealt with some of the darker aspects of adolescence. I wanted to write about a female character in her twenties who, while relatively content as an adult, had a difficult adolescence that she still struggles to understand. I started with that character–Nora–and built the other aspects of the book (the friendship with Charlotte, Rose’s disappearance, the Time-Life books) around her.” Before the Peace Corps and South Africa, Emily  worked as a lexicographer and an English teacher. While she grew up in Connecticut, today she lives with her husband, who served with her in . . .

Remembering Moritz Thomsen Loren Finnell  (Ecuador 1964-66) It was a Saturday afternoon on a summer day in 1964, and we were in a respite from the daily grind of Peace Corps training at Montana State College (now Montana State University).  The two of us were somewhat comfortably situated on a rocky ledge in the wilderness areas outside of Bozeman, watching the roaring flow of the river below and the passing wildlife, as well as taking in the breathtaking view of mountainous terrain.  Mostly, however, we were just glad not to be in language lab repeating Spanish dialogues that we barely understood the meaning of or rushing off to learn something about the geography and political history of Ecuador. We were free to enjoy what we were going to be doing for the next 36 hours…….absolutely nothing! My friend, who I was just getting to know, was a 48-year-old, chain smoking, pig . . .