The Foreign Service Journal, October 2014

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | OCTOBER 2014 61 AFSA NEWS AFSA/BRITTANYDELONG WR I T I NG I N THE FORE I GN SERV I CE A Conversation with Author Matthew Palmer Writing and publishing in the Foreign Service can be a challenge. AFSA hosted FSO Matthew Palmer on Aug. 21 for a conversation on the nuts and bolts of the process. Palmer, a 22-year vet- eran of the Foreign Service, currently serving as political counselor at Embassy Bel- grade, has just published his first book, a thriller titled The American Mission (Putnam Adult, 2014). Answering questions fromAFSA Communications Director Kristen Fernekes, as well as the audience, Palmer expounded on inspiration, the publishing process and how his experience as an FSO informs his fiction. For prospective writers Palmer had words of advice. “Just do it. Write. Don’t be too goal-oriented. Write because it’s fun,” he says. Palmer notes that it took 10 years to com- plete his first book and along the way he wrote “a lot of awful stu‹” which didn’t make it into the final manuscript. “You need to be confidant enough that you can recog- nize what’s awful,” he says. His second book, which will be published and has a working title of Secrets of State , took only 11 months to complete. He has recently signed a contract to write two additional books. He urged would-be authors to persevere and not get discouraged. “Fortitude,” he says, “is an essential part of this process.” A recording of the complete conversation can be found at www.afsa.org/ video. n FSO Matthew Palmer and AFSA Communications Director Kristin Fernekes.