I am happy to feature The Wild Rose Press author Larry Farmer and his recent release, I Will Be the One.

Here’s Larry!

I grew up needing artistic expression. Writing was at the top of the list. I was too shy to express much of my writing publicly, but did finally take a college course in creative writing as an elective. And did well. I began to write long novels that I would throw away. I was never satisfied with them. As I got older I was afraid I would never pursue this dream/obsession even with the desire still so strong inside. Finally, I joined a writer’s group. I wrote and was critiqued as well as critiqued others. I also wrote on my own outside of this group, just trying to learn my craft. Finally I tried to get some of my stories published and was successful in that endeavor.

I Will Be The One is my second contract, my first novel, to be published with The Wild Rose Press. I am very excited about it since it is historically based, true story, first person account of my days in the Peace Corps in the Philippines during the last turbulent years of the Marcos regime. I was there for insurrections, assassinations, and the unbelievably awesome People’s Power revolution. It was made for Hollywood and that somehow seems to have gotten bypassed for all the drama and significance it brought forth. I want people to know. Here it is. I wrote an account of the day-to-day in the barrios and the Cold War aspects of it too. The Philippines, 1984-1986.

Blurb

Following his stint as a Marine during the Vietnam war, James needs something beyond the mundane conformity of his life in Vicksburg, Mississippi. As he enters the Peace Corps, a political reformer named Benigno Aquino is gunned down in the turbulent Philippines, half a world away. James has no idea fate will interweave events for him to witness the overthrow of a dictatorship and the miracle of a bloodless revolution.

Lois has joined the Peace Corps to explore the world outside her staid Ohio upbringing. As a teacher in a remote village she totes her own household water from a distant source, learns to accept locals wandering through her hut at all hours, and even becomes accustomed to gunfire in the jungle night. But when the visit of a suspected spy to her village threatens their lives, she and her friend James must make a decision of lasting import.

Bio

Born in Harlingen, Texas, on October 7, 1948, where I grew up and worked on a cotton farm, I graduated from Harlingen High School in 1966. I attended Texas A&M beginning in Summer 1966. In January 1970 I dropped out to enlist in the United States Marine Corps, where I served as an enlisted man, attaining the rank of Sergeant, with an honorable discharge after three years.

I worked as a computer programmer afterwards in Houston and as a civil servant for a US Air Force Base in Frankfurt, Germany. I traveled and worked in Europe for two years, which included flying to Israel in October 1973 to aid the Jewish State in the Yom Kippur War. I was also in Greece in the summer of 1974 when the war between Greece and Turkey erupted over Cyprus. I was stuck on the Greek Island of Ios for part of that war, until I managed to catch a boat to Athens just in time to watch the Greek military dictatorship fold.

I returned to Texas A&M in the Fall of 1976 to finish my Bachelor’s degree in Business Management and returned to Europe afterwards, and then also to Israel, where I lived for almost a year. I later taught English in Taiwan before returning home to get a Master’s degree in Agricultural Economics in 1980, which I received in 1982. I joined the US Peace Corps in 1984 and served for three years in the Philippines. In 1987 I began work for the Swiss government as a computer programmer until 1998. I have worked in the IT department of Texas A&M since 1998. I have three children, am presently divorced, and am Jewish.

Where to find Larry…

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