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National Peace Corps Association > News > Polyglot > Write Your Story: RPCV Publishes Guide to Peace Corps Memoir Writing
Write Your Story: RPCV Publishes Guide to Peace Corps Memoir Writing
By Sarah Kana on Tuesday, April 17th, 2012
In September 2011, Congressman John Garamendi and his wife Patti, both of whom are Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (Ethiopia 66-68), hosted an event in the Library of Congress Members Dining Room to honor Peace Corps writers. The Library of Congress had recently compiled an annotated bibliography of selected books in the Library of Congress collections authored by returned Peace Corps volunteers and a few former staff members. These writers, who have written about and shared stories of their time serving, have collectively played an important role in carrying out the Third Goal of the Peace Corps: Helping promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.
In order to encourage Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCVs) to share and publish their stories, RPCV Lawrence F. Lihosit (Honduras 75-77) has written a book, Peace Corps Experience: Write & Publish Your Memoir. Lihosit’s book has been well received, earning praise from the late Robert Klein of the Peace Corps Oral History project, who commented, “Write your story but first study this book.”
“Your story should be part of this [Library of Congress] collection,” say Lihosit, “for it represents a small piece of a huge American patchwork quilt that has covered the globe for a half a century, offering solace and hope. It’s a good time to share your experience and that’s why I wrote a book to help you…” 
Peace Corps Experience: Write & Publish Your Memoir, is essentially a “How-To” book for former volunteers and staff who have hesitated to tell their story. The author describes what a memoir is and offers tips on how to write, publish and promote.
Lihosit is also the author of several Peace Corps books:
- Peace Corps Chronology; 1961-2010 includes all notable activities related to the Peace Corps in an easy-to-read style, in chronological order and lists all volunteers who died during and immediately following service.
- South of the Frontera; A Peace Corps Memoir tells the story of how a job loss and a worn picture postcard ignite adventures leading to the Peace Corps in Honduras. It is a vivid and humorous description of Mexico and Central America between 1975 and 1977.
- Whispering Campaign; Stories from Mesoamerica is a a collection of short stories with telling details — a taxi driver unscrews his license plate bulb before driving, a young American bewitched by a female shaman waving a necklace of dried herbs, the son of a salesman who dispels the curse of guilt, freeing the ghost of remorse and much more.
- And finally, Years On and Other Travel Essays in which Lihosit describes how he hitchhiked along bleak Arizona highways, hacked a path through wooded Honduran mountains, avoided caiman while riding bulls in Bolivia and grizzlies as he hunted caribou in bush Alaska, and ran for his life after getting involved in Mexican politics.
For those of you in the Madera County, California area, Lihosit will explain how to write a memoir at the Madera County Library Main Branch (121 North G Street, Madera CA 93637) on Thursday, May 10th between 5:30 and 6:30 in the evening.
To access the annotated bibliography of selected writings written by RPCVs and Peace Corps staff in the Library of Congress, visit: http://www.loc.gov/peacecorps/.
My two years in Korea (1969 -70) transformed my life. Before going I was headed off to the Harvard Business School. After Korea I went, instead, to Alaska and did a four year apprenticeship in carpentry. This eventually led me to Tasmania where I am now a sculptor living on 100 acres of coastal land. None of this would have happened if I didn’t answer the call to help my country in ways different than going to Viet Nam.
how can i get this book???????
I’ve just hyperlinked it. It can be found at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Peace-Corps-Experience-Publish-Memoir/dp/1469760908/ref=lp_B005J8Z602_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1334843050&sr=1-1
I would urge volunteers to write about their experience during their service. I had the good fortune to be a minister’s son whose mother had access to a mimeograph machine in the early 1960s. She typed up my letters home on stencils and sent them out to a wide circle of family and friends. It wasn’t long before I fancied myself a “foreign correspondent” and put lots of time and thought into those letters home. Nearly a half-century later they became the basis for my Peace Corps memoir, “Africa Remembered,” which now resides in the Library of Congress and went on sale in the Smithsonian Museum of African Art.
The book that I wrote about my and my wife’s PC experience (Botswana 2009-2011) was published in December and just missed the LOC event for PC writers. To whom can I write to inquire about getting it on the LOC bibliography?
I just looked at the link to the Library of Congress’ “Annotated Bibliography of Peace Corps Writers’ Books” and saw that my listing is incorrect. It gives my first book, Somewhere Child (which was written and published many years before I joined the Peace Corps at 50). There is no mention of my Peace Corps memoir’s title, How to Cook a Crocodile, published by Peace Corps Writers. This significant omission leads me to believe that the list is untrustworthy. This is unfortunate.
I have a ton of stories about my years in Eastern Europe — where do I send them?
Judy Thatch
Bonnie, at least your name is mentioned in the LOC bibliography. Neither my name nor my book is mentioned, for reasons I won’t go into here. However, I did contribute my book, “Africa Remembered,” in a timely fashion, attended the LOC dinner and obtained a certificate from Rep. Garamendi commending my contribution. Go figure…
Memoirs should read like a good novel but still be truthful to the events and people within. What I have found prevents a lot of good memoirs from being great ones is that many do not have a coherent story to tell. They read more like a journal and a journal does not a good memoir make. You need to be selective about the events you report on and they must link together and follow the dramatic patterns of any good story. Check out my just-published seriocomic memoir, “Dodging Machetes: How I Survived Forbidden Love, Bad Behavior, and the Peace Corps in Fiji,” on Amazon.com. Hopefully you will come away after reading it thinking, “Now that’s the kind of memoir, I’d like to write.”