Foreign Service Reading List
Realities of Foreign Service Life Volume 2
Authors and editors of AAFSW's new book Realities of Foreign Service Life, Volume 2, celebrated their achievement at a reception on October 16, 2007 at NFATC. Back row: John Hosinski, Joanne Cummings, Ann Greenberg, Pat Olsen, Mette Beecroft.. Front row: Faye Barnes, Douglas Kerr, Patricia Linderman, Melissa Hess, Kelly Midura.
Edited by Melissa Hess, Patricia Linderman and Marlene Monfiletto Nice, the book includes essays from 29 members of the U.S. diplomatic community, including Foreign Service officers, specialists, spouses and one articulate teen. The authors broaden and extend the first book’s clear and honest insights into the Foreign Service lifestyle, writing in a journalistic style that combines personal knowledge with the experiences of others in the community.
Focusing on the “realities” faced by diplomats and their families outside the embassy or consulate walls, the writers explore topics such as schooling and housing abroad, intercultural marriage, medical evacuations, employment for accompanying partners, and the rising number of unaccompanied assignments.
Realities of Foreign Service Life, Volume 2 will be especially useful for students and others who are thinking about pursuing a career with the State Department – which recently ranked fourth as an “ideal” employer among American undergraduates (2007 Universum IDEAL Employer Survey). The book joins the first volume in serving as a “reality check,” detailing both the positive and negative aspects of Foreign Service life, for partners and children as well as employees.
Current members of the Foreign Service community will also benefit from the book’s up-to-date and candid treatment of dilemmas they may face overseas, such as finding work for an accompanying partner, talking to local people about political issues, or preparing for the possibility of evacuation.
Co-editors Melissa Brayer-Hess, Patricia Linderman and Marlene Monfiletto Nice are longtime members of the U.S. Foreign Service community. Brayer-Hess is currently Deputy Director in the Crisis Management Training Division of the Leadership and Management School, National Foreign Affairs Training Center, Arlington, Virginia. Linderman is Editor in Chief of Tales from a Small Planet, www.talesmag.com, and Monfiletto Nice, a former newspaper reporter and editor, accompanied her husband to three overseas posts before becoming a Foreign Service officer herself in 2005.
Brayer-Hess and Linderman have also co-authored the book The Expert Expatriate: Your Guide to Successful Relocation Abroad (Nicholas Brealey Intercultural, 2002, second edition forthcoming in Fall 2007), and co-edited the first volume of this series, Realities of Foreign Service Life (AAFSW, 2002).
Realities of Foreign Service Life, Volume 2 sells for $20.95 plus shipping and handling and is available from www.amazon.com and other major booksellers.
For more information, contact AAFSW at (703) 820-5420 or office@aafsw.org .
All proceeds from the sale of this book benefit the Associates of the American Foreign Service Worldwide (AAFSW), sponsors of this website.