RPCV Writers Speak to a Full House at NPCA Conference in Boston

I’m told that the panel for writers & film makers at the NPCA Conference this weekend in Boston was well attended and much appreciated. As one person wrote me: “It was a great hour, the room was full. People were engaged. We had a good discussion among everyone there. Wonderful as always to be among Peace Corps people.”

Thanks to the panel for making it happen, and thanks to the new head of the NPCA, Glenn Blumhorst, for asking PeaceCorpsWriters to be part of the program.

Allen Mondell (Sierra Leone 1963–65) has worked in films and television as a writer, producer and director for 40 years. He recently completed Waging Peace: The Peace Corps Experience, a documentary that weaves the letters, journals, emails and blogs written by Volunteers with the profiles of four former Volunteers who, in their work today, are still making a difference.

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Will Siegel (Ethiopia 1962–64) taught secondary school in Addis Ababa and at the Haile Selassie I School for the Blind; he was also part of a team that authored original text books. Following his return to the US, Will attended graduate school at San Francisco State University and wrote TV scripts for an early Showtime series as well as training videos for large corporations.

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Rajeev Goyal (Nepal 2001–03) new book, The Springs of Namje: A Ten-Year Journey from the Villages of Nepal to the Halls of Congress, describes how, as a Volunteer, he helped build a two-stage water pumping system and the complex lessons he learned about rural development during his 22 journeys back to Namje.

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Cynthia Morrison Phoel ( Bulgaria 1994–96)  captured her time there in a collection of fiction, Cold Snap: Bulgaria  Stories, which was published by Southern Methodist University Press in 2010. Her fiction has also appeared in The Missouri Review, The Gettysburg Review, and Harvard Review. Beyond fiction, Phoel works as a professional communicator.