Citizenship | Literature
Select novels, short stories, and nonfiction on contemporary life.
Ben East’s nonfiction debut recounts how JFK’s bold experiment shaped diplomatic careers and influenced modern American diplomacy.
Read, Listen, Watch
-
Work in progress. Banging out chapters for a middle grade audience. I’ll want to tweak the title and synopsis, but here’s a start: Soon after Christopher Fischer (a.k.a. Fish) meets new fifth-grader Monty Peregrine, a man dressed in underwear enters the Sweet Life Cafe and orders pants. Who is this half-naked stranger? And what’s his…
-
Only in our currently defiled situation could an unpaid intern have the gall and patience to assert moral power… This month’s Foreign Service Journal features an incisive review of Patchworks by author and retired Foreign Service Officer Dan Whitman. Generous praise from a great writer. Dan served as French interpreter for the State Department’s International…
-
Resolution: Let’s be deliberate in the year ahead. Let’s choose our time and our course and our actions with a certainty in what we hope to achieve. I’ll begin January working on the novel that will serve as a gift for my second son, who turns eight in July. That work will continue steadily during…
-
I’ll end 2017 on a high note. A mighty effort in the last weeks of December pushed my page views for the year over 6,000. That’s nothing compared to the many blogs who get 6,000 views in a month, a week, a day, but it was my goal for 2017. A sincere Thank You to…
-
I pictured myself in a Peace Corps-issue hammock on an island somewhere, or crossing high glaciers in the glaring Himalayan sun. Then the recruiter called and offered Malawi. Pointless to remind her what I’d written where the application asked my preference: ‘Anywhere but Africa.’ Before that call, a recruiter—maybe the same recruiter—offered another would-be…
-
We are waiting on a shuttle from the Cancun airport (CUN) to Puerto Morelos, half an hour south. The driver checks on some paperwork after shoving a couple dozen suitcases into the rear. Sweating in the sun, he reviews his clipboard, makes a call, consults his coworkers dressed in matching tropical shirts. The Americans behind…
-
Good friend, great colleague, and talented writer Linda McMullen had this short fiction published this past winter’s Solstice at Typishly. It’s wry, smart, and tight, and it begins like this: The Announcement by LINDA MCMULLEN He was the product of a torrid affair between an Edith Wharton novel and a J. Crew catalogue, with his wavy Titian…
-
Cherish. Having the quality of a pop diva. Cherish. Cherish. Not quite a chair. More of a stool, really. Cherish. Cherish. An artificial flavor just short of cherry flavored. Cherish. Cherish. To lead, sort-of. Cherish. WordPress prompt word of the day: Cherish.
-
The whole house smells like butter. And onions. Butter and onions. As well it should: our five-person assembly line this morning put together one full gross of pierogi. That’s 144 butter-filled, butter-fried dumplings. With 12 for dinner, that’s a dozen pierogi apiece. So what, exactly, is a pierogi? Depends who you ask. If you ask…
-
The word PEACE stretches out in silver letters beneath the lighted garland on our mantel. Tomorrow we’ll build a fire there and friends will gather round for warmth and cheer. The shortest day of the year has come and gone, & our side of the world now turns toward light. Will the light show our…
Ben East Books 