Citizenship | Literature
Select novels, short stories, and nonfiction on contemporary life.
What began as a bold experiment in grassroots service produced future ambassadors to help guide U.S. diplomacy through seven decades of global upheaval.
Read, Listen, Watch
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Two weeks until the February 15th deadline for submitting your manuscript to this year’s Dundee International Book Prize. Curious about what floats their boat? Read last year’s shortlisted works: My manuscript Sea Never Dry, thick with crooked cops, fetish priests, Internet fraudsters, and orphans turning a buck off a West African e-waste dump, made last year’s cut. Read the excerpt below. Now,…
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What if W. Mitt Romney is nominated as the Republican presidential candidate in 2016? And what if Sarah Palin joins the race? What if Mittens chooses Palin as his running mate? I give you their chit-chat: Palin: Who hijacked the term ‘Feminist’? A cackle of radicals who want to crucify other women with whom they disagree. M: I went to…
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This review appears in the latest issue of Crime Factory magazine–the excellent Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite! by Douglas Lindsay. Enjoy, coffee drinkers and Beatles lovers! Before Douglas Lindsay’s Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite! descends into nightmare, the narrative hints at a story about the ho-hum life: the humorous musings of a middle-aged man resigned to a tired…
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The killing of Charlie Kirk ignited a firestorm over freedom of expression and speech rights in the United States.
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The following was published January 6 at Atticus Review. REDEMPTION UNDER ICE: A REVIEW OF RYAN W. BRADLEY’S WINTERSWIM The prologue to Ryan W. Bradley’s Winterswim strikes quick and brutal: a violent pastor, a forced conversion to Christ, a victim on a frozen lake in the arctic night. The pastor murders his young female prey by pushing her…
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I’ve always felt a strong connection to Paul Theroux, due largely to our shared legacy as Peace Corps Volunteers in Malawi. When I expressed reluctance about taking an assignment teaching English there in the ’90s, the recruiter suggested I read My Secret History, part of which was inspired by Theroux’s experience teaching English in Malawi in the…
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I enjoyed co-authoring the following piece with my son. Poor kid’s got Christmas on the brain. No harm; so do I. Merry Christmas, everyone. Christmas at Pilchard’s Diner Pilchard worked as a short order cook in his own diner on the outskirts of town. The patrons were a rough mix of millworkers and truck drivers,…
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I picked up Greg Matos’ Shattered Glass—The Story of a Marine Embassy Guard with a narrow purpose. I wanted to read about the December 2004 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. I wanted to know what it felt like to be the Marine standing Post when five heavily armed terrorists stormed our compound, killing…
Ben East Books 