Background
Chilson, Peter Mcgovern was born on July 3, 1961 in Royal Oak, Michigan, United States. Son of Elbert Victor Chilson and Mary Clare Gorman.
( In Niger, where access to rail and air travel requires ...)
In Niger, where access to rail and air travel requires overcoming many obstacles, roads are the nation’s lifeline. For a year in the early 1990s, Peter Chilson traveled this desert country by automobile to experience West African road culture. He crisscrossed the same roads again and again with bush taxi driver Issoufou Garba in order to learn one driver's story inside and out. He hitchhiked, riding in cotton trucks, and traveled with other bush taxi drivers, truckers, road engineers, an anthropologist, Niger's only licensed woman commercial driver, and a customs officer. The road in Africa, says Chilson, is more than a direction or a path to take. Once you've booked passage and taken your seat, the road becomes the center of your life. Hurtling along at eighty miles an hour in a bush taxi equipped with bald tires, no windows, and sometimes no doors, travelers realize that they've surrendered everything. Chilson uses the road not to reinforce Africa's worn image of decay and corruption but to reveal how people endure political and economic chaos, poverty, and disease. The road has reflected the struggle for survival in Niger since the first automobile arrived there, and it remains a useful metaphor for the fight for stability and prosperity across Africa.
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Chilson, Peter Mcgovern was born on July 3, 1961 in Royal Oak, Michigan, United States. Son of Elbert Victor Chilson and Mary Clare Gorman.
Bachelor in Journalism, Syracuse University, 1984. Bachelor in International Relations, Syracuse University, 1984. Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, Pennsylvania State University, 1994.
Reporter Watertown (New York ) Daily Times, 1984-1985. Volunteer, English teacher Peace Corps, Niger, West Africa, 1985-1987. Freelance journalist Associated Press, Ivory Coast, 1987-1988.
Adjunct professor English Green River Community College, Auburn, Washington, 1994-1997. Associate editor High Country News, Paonia, Colorado, 1997-1998. Assistant professor English Washington State University, Pullman, since 1998.
Creative writing contest judge Master of Fine Arts program Pennsylvania State University, State College, 1999.
( In Niger, where access to rail and air travel requires ...)
Member Associate Writing Programs (contest judge 1998).
Married Laura Anne Gephart, November 7, 1998.