Peace Corps Worldwide – Page 330 – promoting Peace Corps writers since 1989

Mass Market Paperback Sales Down Nearly 41%

Feb 27 2012

[RPCV Jason Boog (Guatemala 2000-02) is the editor of the important industry page, GalleyCat, which is part of mediabistro.com site. If you write, and or you are interested in publishing, you need to check out this site. Jason writes today a timely piece on the state of book pubishing.] “According to the Association of American Publishers (AAP) net sales revenue report for December, adult mass market paperback sales dropped 40.9 percent compared to the same period the year before. Overall trade sales declined almost three percent, dipping from $561.3 million to $545.1 million. “Overall trade book sales saw a four percent drop and mass market paperback sales declined nearly 36 percent for the year. While eBook sales increased 117 percent last year, they still have not closed the gap with declining print sales. “Here’s more from the release: “The December report represents data provided by 77 publishers and only sales of the . . .

January 2012 Books by Peace Corps Writers

Feb 25 2012

A Small Key Opens Big Doors — 50 Years of Amazing Peace Corps Stories, Volume Three: The Heart of Eurasia edited by Jay Chen (Kazakhstan 2005–08) Series editor Jane Albritton (India 1967–69) Travelers’ Tales/Solas House $18.95 (paperback) 336 pages October 2011 • Letters From Moritz Thomsen: Peace Corps Legend by Christopher West Davis (Kenya 1975–77) Createspace $11.95 (paperback) 137 pages October 2011 • About Face: A Novel by Carole Howard (Staff Spouse: Ivory Coast, Togo, Senegal 1972–75) Warkwick Associates $13.95 (paperback); $2.99 (Kindle) 315 pages September 2011 • The Talk-Funny Girl by Roland Merullo (Micronesia 1979–80) Crown $23.00 (hardcover); $14.00 (paperback); $11.99 (Kindle) 320 pages July 2011 • Citrus White Gold: An Alternate History of Citrus County, Florida by John Charles Miller (Dominican Republic 1962–64) CreateSpace $14.95 (paperback) 223 pages August 2011 • You Can’t Pick Up Raindrops: A Collection of Short Stories by John Charles Miller (Dominican Republic 1962–64) . . .

More from Mark Shriver's book about his Dad

Feb 24 2012

Mark Shriver writes in A Good Man — out this June from Henry Holt — that he applied to the Peace Corps in his senior year at Holy Cross College. “After waiting months to hear — no one [in our family] from my generation had yet been accepted into the program — I learned that I would serve as an English teacher in Paraguay.” He then went with his Dad to the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Peace Corps held under a enormous tent on the Mall in Washington, D.C.. This was the famous reunion organized by the Returned Volunteer of Washington, not by any national group of RPCVs, nor by the Peace Corps agency. The Peace Corps, as we know, never organizes anything for RPCVs. “Dad . . . gave a terrific speech with a rousing finale,” Mark writes.”I was sitting in the front row, proud of him and motivated to serve.” Mark goes on to . . .

October 15, 1979 COUP! Now What? Leaving El Salvador 1979 -1980 Part Two

Feb 24 2012

In an ACTION Memorandum, dated October 16, 1979, (DNSA-GWU Collection: El Salvador: The Making of U.S. Policy 1977 – 1984: Item Number ES00248) Washington staffer Bill Reese responds to to LAC Regional Director Paul Bell’s, request for suggestions. The memo is entitled: “Some Thoughts on El Salvador, prior to October 1979 Coup.” Reese identifies himself as “Your Devil’s Advocate” but his concerns and suggestions are very serious. Reese argues that there is a need for “contingency plans” beyond just evacuation. He appears to me to be most concerned with the issues of Peace Corps Trainees. He writes: 2. November PST – STOP. Transferring out PCVs in Oct-Nov to place new Vs in February? The Fall 80 Vs in February will be at their weakest, as all new Vs are that early on: –less than good Spanish –new jobs –no housing, or at best a new neighborhood –less than full . . .

Chris Conlon (Botswana 1988-90) Nominated for Bram Stoker Award

Feb 23 2012

Poet, writer, and editor Christopher Conlon (Botswana 1988–90) has been named one of six finalists for the prestigious Bram Stoker Award in the category of Superior Achievement in a Novel for his book A Matrix of Angels (Creative Guy Publishing, 2011). The Stokers have been given annually in a variety of categories since 1987 by the Horror Writers Association, and they are considered the premier award in the field. This year’s winners will be announced at a gala banquet March 31 at the World Horror Convention in Salt Lake City. “It’s very exciting,” says the author. “I won a Stoker a couple of years ago, but that was an award for my work as an editor. I’m thrilled that this time around the HWA has seen fit to recognize my writing.” Past winners of the Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Novel have included Stephen King, Peter Straub, and . . .

Interview: Richard Tillotson (Malaysia 1967-69) Author of Acts of God While On Vacation

Feb 22 2012

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 . . .

The Death of Kennedy and Haile Selassie Remembered

Feb 22 2012

Continuing for a moment on the theme of JFK and Peace Corps Volunteers, I happen to get hold of an early copy of Mark K. Shriver’s book on his father entitled, A Good Man, that Henry Holt is publishing in June. My wife is a magazine executive and her staff is trained to give her copies of any book about the Peace Corps or Ethiopia that arrives at the office! Mark’s book has the subtitle of Rediscovering my Father. Sarge, as we know, died in January 2011 at the age of 95. And in the last years of his long life he suffered from Alzheimer. A story Mark tells in his book is about the immediate aftermath of Kennedy’s death, and the gathering of world dignitaries in Washington, D.C. for the state funeral. Shriver more or less ran the wake and funeral and on the day of the Mass and burial the White House was jammed with heads of state. Angie Duke, then the chief . . .

When Presidents Greeted PCVs on the South Lawn of the White House

Feb 21 2012

Lee Tuveson (Nepal (1962–64) was nice enough to send me a copy of the address that John F. Kennedy made to 600+ Peace Corps Trainees in Washington, D.C. on August 9, 1962. Lee , who was in attendance, was headed off to Nepal with that country’s first group of PCVs, and Marian Beil and I, who were there as well, were leaving after Labor Day with the first group of Volunteers to Ethiopia. Here are JFK’s remarks to us, but really, Kennedy’s comments were for all the PCVs who would join the Peace Corps in the years to come. It would be great now to get comments from other departing Trainees who were on the White House lawn that August afternoon, and from those PCVs who were at “send-offs” by other presidents, or by Peace Corps Directors, in later years. What do you remember? • Ladies and gentlemen: We are very glad to welcome you here to the White House. This occasion . . .

The Practical Idealism of The Peace Corps, Essay by Jamie Price

Feb 21 2012

Maureen Orth (Colombia 1965-67) was kind enough to forward to me an article entitled “Practical Idealism: How Sargent Shriver Built the Peace Corps” in the February 10, 2012 issue of Commonweal magazine. The article was written by Jamie Price, the Director of the Insight Conflict Resolution Program at George Mason University and Executive Director of the Sargent Shriver Peace Institute. Commonweal, if you don’t know the publication, is a wonderful liberal independent journal of opinions published by lay Catholics. Their offices are located on the West Side of New York City, and as they say, they have “a good view of the Hudson River and beyond.” The Jamie Price piece is too long to re-print so let me just quote a few paragraphs. Jamie Price writes: “Fifty years ago the Peace Corps represented a brand-new idea. Nothing like it had ever been tried by the U.S. government, and the nation greeted it with widespread enthusiasm–one Harris . . .

Leaving El Salvador for the First Time 9.1.79 – 3.31.1980 Part One

Feb 20 2012

When is a country too dangerous for Peace Corps Volunteers to remain? And who decides? Host Country officials? Peace Corps staff? Peace Corps Volunteers? Or, the State Department? These questions are foundational issues for Peace Corps. The collection, “El Salvador: The Making of U.S. Policy, 1977 -1984” (National Security Archive, George Washington University, Washington D. C)- includes 20 public documents in which we can see how Peace Corps answered these questions during a turbulent time in El Salvador, some 32 years ago. The website for the National Security Archive is: www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/ Please note: “These materials are reproduced from www.nsarchive.org with the permission of the National Security Archive.” The documents consist of correspondence between Peace Corps in country staff and Peace Corps Washington; between Peace Corps staff and the State Department; and, between Peace Corps Volunteers assigned to El Salvador and Peace Corps Washington. Today, Peace Corps has withdrawn programs from Honduras . . .

Don Messerschmidt (Nepal 1963-65) Wins National Award for Dog Book

Feb 20 2012

Don Messerschmidt (Nepal 1963–65), anthropologist and writer, has won national recognition for his recent non-fiction book, Big Dogs of Tibet and the Himalayas: A Personal Journey (Orchid Press). His book received the Dog Writers Association of America’s (DWAA) prestigious Maxwell Medallion for Excellence at their annual meeting in New York City in early February. Big Dogs is the result of Don’s life-long love of Tibetan mastiffs and other large canines of the Himalayan regions. He first went to Nepal as a Peace Corps Volunteer in 1963, and returned later as an anthropologist. After he encountered the big dogs of the Himalayan region he began nearly a half-century of research on their place in local cultures and as livestock (yak and sheep) guardians. The book, based on his in-depth research is part memoir, part history and cultural description, and part reference book about the Tibetan mastiffs, with sections on three . . .

Innocent RPCV Imprisoned in Nicaragua

Feb 19 2012

By Ashley Fantz, Jason Puracal, a 34-year-old American, is seen in this image shot last year, imprisoned in Nicaragua. Well-known human rights attorneys, FBI agent, Iran hikers defend imprisoned American Jason Puracal, 34, was a real estate agent working in Nicaragua No evidence was presented to support his conviction and 22-year sentence, defense says Supporters: Puracal has been behind bars for 15 months, is seriously ill (CNN) — Since last summer, a former Peace Corps volunteer from Washington state has been wasting away in a Nicaraguan prison, wrongfully convicted of international drug trafficking, money laundering and organized crime, his supporters say. A growing chorus of defense attorneys, investigators, human rights activists and lawmakers is calling for 34-year-old Jason Puracal’s release. Puracal’s advocates include the director of the California Innocence Project, the human-rights attorney who helped win freedom for Burmese Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and an ex-FBI . . .

Heather Kaschmitter — A Writer Writes

Feb 18 2012

A Writer Writes Heather Kaschmitter was a Youth and Community Development Volunteer on the island of Pohnpei in the Federated States of Micronesia. She was in the 69th group of PCVs to be sent to Micronesia. While there, she started a library at an elementary school and taught English part time, and all the while, she gathered stories of the island that someday she hoped to build into a book. Here is one of the stories she’ll tell. • Sakau Moon Ring by Heather Kaschmitter (Micronesia 2002–04) Disclaimer For me to write about sakau, I beg the forgiveness of the Pohnpeians, and any other culture that drinks kava. As an American, there is no way I will ever be able to understand or appreciate the importance of this beverage completely. My understanding is that sakau was historically a sacred beverage. In the past, women were forbidden from drinking, and it is still looked down upon, even though women . . .

Review of Terry Marshall's Soda Springs: Love, Sex and Civil Rights

Feb 17 2012

Soda Springs: Love, Sex and Civil Rights by Terry Marshall (Philippines 1965–68; Solomon Islands & Kiribati Co-CD 1977–80, PC Washington 1980–82) Illustrations by Chuck Asay Friesen Press 367 pages Hardcover $30.39, paperback $19.13, Kindle $7.79 December 2010 Reviewed by Tony D’Souza (Ivory Coast 2000–02, Madagascar 2002–03) IF A POLITICALLY-CORRECT, TWO-DIMENSIONAL soap opera featuring twenty-year-old virgins is what you’re looking for, then Terry Marshall’s novel Soda Springs: Love, Sex and Civil Rights is the book for you. One of the reasons I found the novel irksome — just as with another recent book by a former Peace Corps Country Director, J. Larry Brown and Peasants Come Last — is Marshall’s heavy-handed marketing of Soda Springs. Unlike most review books that come my way, Soda Springs was accompanied by a leaflet campaign touting the cumbersome tome as, “Soda Springs, a place you’ll never forget. A book you can’t put down. You’ll laugh. . . .

Review of David Mather's One for the Road

Feb 16 2012

One for the Road David Mather (Chile 1968–70) Peace Corps Writers 400 pages $14.95 (paperback) 2011 Reviewed by Reilly Ridgell (Micronesia 1971–73) THERE ARE SOME 32 PEACE CORPS NOVELS listed in the Peace Corps Worldwide bibliography. I’ve now read four and written one. From that small sample, I’m beginning to detect some patterns that may hinder us Peace Corps novelists from achieving the success we dream of. Generally speaking, the Peace Corps novels that I’ve read tend to be long on setting and short on plot. In fact, and I was guilty of this, the plot tends to be a vehicle with which to provide the reader with all kinds of information about the Peace Corps experience. Sometimes we end up with novels that read like memoirs. We are just so affected by our time in Peace Corps and how different life can be somewhere other than a US suburb that . . .