I’ve just learned that my essay, “Hugs Not Walls: Returning the Children,” is a finalist in the Arizona Authors Association literary competition where my book, “Different Latitudes” was recognized two years ago and is now ranked 22nd for “Guatemala Travel Guide”! The essay is one piece of a multi-part series on the challenges of migration into the U.S. and will be published in the 2020 Arizona Literary Magazine. I’ll learn the results at the awards ceremony in early November. In the meantime, I continue to wait with infinite patience for my articles to drop in “The Scarlet Leaf Review” and […]
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Newsletter: August 2019
Upon returning from vacation, I was confronted with an offer to become the CEO of “Better Soils Better Lives,” which has developed techniques around soil restoration as a solution to global hunger and includes some interesting carbon dioxide extraction technologies so important in dealing with climate change. I’d worked with Roland at World Neighbors, and knew him from his classic book on agricultural extension, “Two Ears of Corn.” He’s worked on agricultural development for as long as I have worked in fundraising and covered 50 countries. He’s been nominated for the Global 500 Award, the End the Hunger Prize of […]
Continue readingNewsletter: July 2019
This has been an eventful month with two new articles, a presentation at the Phoenix Writers Club and participation in the Peace Corps Connect Conference at the University of Texas in Austin. My trip to Austin was complicated by my driver’s license having expired, (we get it for five years in Arizona and they don’t let you know when it expires…) so I spent over an hour at Sky Harbor International Airport getting patted down and everything in my luggage getting checked for drugs – and it was worse on the way back! On Sunday morning in Austin, the lines […]
Continue readingBook Review – Latin America: In The Kingdom of Mescal: An Adult Fairy-Tale for Adults
In The Kingdom of Mescal: An Adult Fairy-Tale for Adults A Book Review by Mark D. Walker September 2017 Hardcover: 38 pages Publisher: Galeria Panajachel, Guatemala; 1st edition (1977) Language: English ASIN: B000KNLN4Y Package Dimensions: 12 x 8.3 x 0.4 inches Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces Although this book begins with the typical “Once upon a time” and is based on a legend from the Mayan Indians of Guatemala, it is far from traditional. In true Joseph Campbell fashion, this myth describes the different stages of an epic journey of an Indian boy named Blackhair […]
Continue readingBook Review – Non-fiction: With Charity for All: Why Charities Are Failing and a Better Way to Give
BOOK REVIEW OF, With Charity for All: Why Charities Are Failing and a Better Way to Give By Ken Stern Reviewed by Mark D. Walker Former NPR CEO analyses the not for profit sector he knows so well. At the very beginning he states, “This book is not my story. This is a story about how the charitable sector lost its way.” The scope of the charitable sector the author critiques is immense and very complex–1.1 million organizations, 10% of the national workforce, and $1.5 trillion in annual revenues. The sector continues to grow and yet as the author contends, […]
Continue readingBook Review – Non-fiction: WINNERS TAKE ALL: The Elite Charade of Changing the World
WINNERS TAKE ALL: The Elite Charade of Changing the World By Anand Giridharadas Reviewed by Mark D. Walker Based on a growing awareness of the increased income inequality in the U.S. and around the world, this insider’s investigation on how global elites promote “global change” at least partially has resulted in it being one of the most read books in the country at this time. The author also tells how this group ends up preserving the status quo and obscures the role these same “experts” play, causing some of the same problems they seek to solve. This former New York […]
Continue readingBook Review – Latin America: Voices From Exile
Voices From Exile By Victor Montejo Reviewed by Mark D. Walker As a lifelong learner of Guatemala and its history, I came across this author through an earlier book I’d read in Spanish, “The Adventures of Mister Puttison and the Mayas.” Then, just this year I came across this book while researching a documentary on migration entitled “Guatemala: Trouble in the Highlands.” While the earlier book was satirical, and related to cross-cultural norms and conflicts, this book tells the tragic story of Mayans being forced from their land during the “Civil War” of the 1980s. After copious research and interviews […]
Continue readingBook Review – About Writing: Virginia Woolf: A Writer’s Diary
Virginia Woolf: A Writer’s Diary Edited by Leonard Woolf Reviewed by Mark D. Walker I knew that Virginia Woolf was one of the major literary figures of the twentieth century and understood that she’s transformed the art of the novel with her ground- breaking works of Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse. I’d soon learn that she was the author of numerous collections of letters, journals and short stories and an admired literary critic and master of the essay, so she was someone I needed to become familiar with. I assumed that she was also the inspiration of Edward Albee’s […]
Continue readingBook Review – Fiction: Town of Angels
Town of Angels by Jody Sharpe Reviewed by Mark D. Walker This inspirational book proves the power of the human spirit to move on despite incredible tragedy and personal loss. The author’s daughter, Kate, was killed in a tragic accident and then her husband died, and during a difficult period where many would have succumbed to despair, she had a dream in which a voice told her to read “Charlotte’s Web,” by E.V. White, which is a children’s book. Initially she didn’t know why she should read it until the last line of the book revealed that, “Nobody would take […]
Continue readingBook Review – Travel: Topographies
Topographies by Stephen Benz Reviewed by Mark D. Walker I was drawn to this book because the author had written about my favorite part of the world, Guatemala, as well as several parts of the Wild West. The reader is taken through a diversity of locations starting with the Everglades and the sad story of the mass killing of egrets. Forty to sixty hunters would descend and let loose a “barrage,” killing hundreds of birds. The author goes beyond the location and even its beauty with a dramatic focus on history. In Nebraska, we are introduced to the plight of […]
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