Khertvisi Castle, Khertvisi, Georgia

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Published Authors!

On Wednesday, July 27, Sam and I were invited to the official book release of a book called “Musings on the Cow, and Then Some.” This book was the brainchild of some of the PC Georgia staff and the U.S. Embassy in Georgia and is a compilation of blog posts and photos written and taken by PCVs in Georgia (from the G9 and G10 groups). This year is the 50th anniversary of Peace Corps worldwide and also marks 10 years of the Peace Corps Georgia program.

Inside the Palace of Youth in Tbilisi

The blog book (as we all informally called it while it was searching for a title) is really a cool thing. Sam and I had three different blog posts (and lots of pictures) selected for inclusion. We’ll get copies and bring them home to show off to everyone, and if we find that they end up being available elsewhere (pretty unlikely, I think, but they do have an ISBN number, so who knows?), I’ll be sure to let you know.

A pretty nice building, no?

The launch party for the book was really nice. It was held in the Palace of Youth in Tbilisi, a very cool building that I had walked past several times but never been inside. (It also turns out to be the building in which the Republic of Georgia declared its independence from the Russian Empire in 1918, as well as where the Republic of Azerbaijan did the same in the same year.) The U.S. Ambassador to Georgia, John Bass, attended the event with several Embassy employees. The Ambassador is a really wonderfully nice man and extremely knowledgeable, but also exceptionally busy, so for him to take time out of his schedule to attend an event like this for Peace Corps is always really fantastic, I think.

L-R: Ambassador Bass with his wife, me, my friend Marianna and PC Georgia Country Director, Rick Record

Each of the volunteers who contributed to the book were asked to speak a little bit about why they blog and what they write about. Afterwards they distributed books to attendees. Also invited to the event were several Georgian students and some other Tbilisians, who all swarmed us for autographs after the formal part of the evening was completed. It seemed a little funny, but I guess it’s something we’ll have to get used to as published authors.

3 comments:

  1. I just did a google search to see if I could locate a copy of your book and the first search result was a picture of you and some others at the book release on The Embassy of the United States-Georgia website. Pretty cool....

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  2. Awesome! I can't wait to see the pics/blog posts of yours that are included.

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  3. I think this is way cooler than a tent...I mean, you have to go outside to use a tent! And your chocolate is much more likely to melt or get bugs in it when it is in a tent whereas reading a book and chocolate go together. And you can always have a PFC while you read a book, harder to do in a tent w/o a blender.

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