RICHARD SCOTT SACKS Author | Updates

A TRIP BY CANOE (excerpt)

RICHARD SCOTT SACKS Author — Sat, 14 Sep 2024 17:10:57 -0400

Looking back, I spotted a large canoe directly behind us moving fast, trying to overtake us. It was still some distance away. Lee had a look at them. We decided to go for it.

We didn’t stand a chance but we paddled like madmen. Pulling hard, we shot across the water. That canoe behind us fell back a bit. But after a minute or two they had speeded up again. We knew we couldn’t win this game because, well, because there was no canoe race in this country that we could win. And we were clearly outclassed: Five paddlers standing erect on the gunnels, all stabbing the water as one with nine-foot-long paddles pointed at the ends like knives. Call them oars, more like.

Before long they were dead even with us. Covered with sweat, their black bodies worked like machines made of oiled wood and their muscles stood out sharp under their skin.

“They want to board,” I said to Lee but looking back at them, Lee indicated that we would follow. Still they tried to board and we fended off furiously with our paddles. Passing us, the stern man grinned at me as we fell in behind, his filed teeth gleaming like tiny ivory daggers.

Ahead on the west bank was a village, a large one. The landing was all confusion. Hundreds of wide-eyed faces watched us arrive. Everywhere people were running down to the river. The boatmen tied up the canoes and got up on the dock. The stern man gave me a big grin.

"What happens now?” I whispered to Lee.

"We just have to show them that we're serious and that we know what we're doing. They're much more afraid of us than you think.”

Lee climbed out on the rough dock all business and the crowd fell back, cowering, amazed and afraid.

"I think we better show them the laissez-passer,” I told Lee.

A tall thin youth appeared with some followers, walked right up to Lee and grasped him around the wrist, his thumb and forefinger touching to show that he was officially handcuffed.

"I arrest you in the name of the Revolution,” the youth said in French. Lee pushed him hard and he nearly fell over. He glowered and came back at him. "This time you'll land on the ground,” Lee told him. Wary, losing face fast, angry and confused, the youth held back. He raised his arm and pointed the way.

As Lee started going back toward the canoe, a roar went up from the crowd and they carried us forward in a human wave.

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MY INTERVIEW WITH ONETRIBUNE IN THE WORLD’S BEST MAGAZINE ASSISTED BY The Chrysalis BREW Project

RICHARD SCOTT SACKS Author — Sun, 1 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

https://theworldsbestmagazine.com/2026/02/16/richard-scott-sacks-on-travel-language-and-writing-fiction-from-global-encounters/

Richard Scott Sacks on Travel, Language, and Writing Fiction from Global Encounters

“I’ve been to 80 countries and speak four foreign languages.”
– RICHARD SCOTT SACKS

Richard Scott Sacks has a background in U.S. diplomacy and has used his experiences abroad to inform his fiction. His language proficiency, cultural immersion, and decades spent travelling are all evident in his work. In this interview, Sacks talks about how his travels across continents influenced his research and writing on how people react when faced with difficult moral decisions.

Richard, thank you for joining us. To begin, could you introduce yourself in your own words—what you do, what draws you to your work, and what you aim to contribute through it?

Hello! It’s wonderful to have this opportunity. My name is Richard Scott Sacks. I’m a writer with two books under my belt and a third on the way. And I’m an American diplomat. Writer and diplomat. Those are two vocations I identified at an early age because I loved reading and language and wanted to write, and I loved to travel and living abroad. I was good at learning languages, and I got along easily with foreigners.

I’ve been to 80 countries and speak four foreign languages. Writing has led me to specialize in journalism and fiction. My novel, DRINKING FROM THE STREAM, focuses on difficult moral choices, politics, friendship, acts of courage, coming of age, and long-distance travel in the East African outback at a time of upheaval, dictatorship, and mass murder. Set in the early 1970s during the Vietnam War and the Chinese Cultural Revolution, STREAM presents the world as the characters see it while they grapple with moral ambiguity, cultural clashes, and revolution. Under great strain and uncertainty, constantly worried about how their lives and careers will turn out, these young people face the added stress of constantly crossing borders without knowing what new crisis they will face.

Your writing reflects time spent in many places and roles. How has moving across different environments influenced the way you observe people and situations?

Culture can be defined broadly as how people think within a given group, society, or nation. So understanding cultures offers a key to predicting what people will do and how they will view events. History, or historical myth, is an important part of culture and offers clues about political behavior. Understanding local economics is important, too.

How do people make a living? What do they eat? How do they live? What are their goals? What threatens them? What benefits them? How are they divided? Whom do they resent? These are just examples. You have to meet people where they live, and it helps if you know something about the place they inhabit.

Also be aware of how people perceive you—your nationality, your background, your language, your appearance, your actions and behavior. What are you yourself bringing to the interaction? It’s not just them!

When you begin a long-form project, what usually comes first for you: a question, a setting, a character, or a moment you cannot let go of?

Sometimes great events touch us deeply. In May 1972, while hitchhiking through Africa, I had reached Angola, which was then a Portuguese colony. I was reading the International Herald Tribune in a student cafeteria at the University of Luanda when an article caught my eye about ethnic killings in Burundi.

One month earlier, in April 1972, in a three-day rampage, Hutu rebels using pangas—machetes—had killed hundreds of unsuspecting Tutsi citizens in hopes of sparking a civil war.

The massacres that followed were even more shocking. The Tutsi-led Burundi army quickly defeated the Hutu death squads. Then they launched a much bigger, better organized ethnic bloodletting of their own. The Hutu revolt had been led by Hutu schoolteachers, jobless because no one in Tutsi-ruled Burundi would hire them. Burundi’s answer to unemployed Hutu schoolteachers was to kill educated Hutus, who were defined as any Hutu who had gotten past the fourth grade.

Tens of thousands were already dead in 1972. As we now know, by 1973 well over 200,000 Hutus had been murdered.

How and why did the initial uprising happen? And how could so many people be murdered so quickly—first by one group, then by another—I wondered. And why was the world ignoring it? I had been less than fifty miles from Burundi. What if I had decided to visit Burundi myself? If I had done that, I would have been there exactly when the killings broke out. This event is what led me to write DRINKING FROM THE STREAM.

Your work often explores how individuals respond to unfamiliar settings. What have you learned about adaptation and perspective through your own experiences?

Some people adapt to new settings quickly; others can’t do it. I’ve learned to be willing to be surprised. In an unfamiliar place, one must drop expectations and preconceptions, not jump to conclusions or stereotype, but look and listen instead.

Pay attention to what’s going on: study what people say, what they do, and how they act. You’ve got to go out and talk to people, ask questions, make friends, read newspapers, and listen to the radio. And if possible, you must learn the language. Without language, you’re sunk. You’ll never understand a culture and a society without it.

Looking back across your career, are there milestones, recognitions, or turning points that helped clarify your direction, and what did those moments teach you?

There were definitely moments of clarity. I lived in Germany when I was sixteen and studied German while living with a German family. Right out of college, I traveled and worked overseas for five years. I picked up languages quickly, kept a journal, and loved reading all kinds of novels, including foreign novels, plus history, politics, philosophy, travel stories, and economics.

When I came home, I decided to earn my living as a writer, though I didn’t always stick to it. I joined the Foreign Service partly to live abroad. I was well suited to the lifestyle. I noticed that I often enjoyed the company of foreigners as much as my fellow countrymen. If I don’t watch myself, I tend to “go native” quickly.

Writing often requires balancing research, memory, and imagination. How do you approach accuracy and responsibility while still allowing a story to breathe?

Imagination is crucial. It is the basis of fiction. Memory is not reliable; it’s more like a picture story we keep watching on our private movie screen. Keeping a journal helps.

I often have compared memories with people who traveled with me and find they either don’t remember the things I remember, and vice versa, or else they remember the same event completely differently. No matter. Writing fiction is impossible without memory, unreliable though it may be, but the author’s depiction of memory must be true.

A character must act in a way that’s true to herself, to what she and the other characters know, and to the situation. When writing historical fiction, the writer must keep his facts straight and be very sure not to contradict the historical record. At the same time, he must immerse the characters in a real framework of events as they actually transpired—or in situations that could have arisen within that framework. That requires careful research and careful sequencing of the plot.

Many readers are interested in how authors sustain curiosity over time. What practices or habits help you continue learning and refining your craft?

I’m always curious about how things work, about what makes people unique and why they do the things they do. I read a lot—newspapers, magazines, novels, biography, history. I try not to get stuck in my comfort zone.

I often force myself to branch out to areas where I know nothing, like fashion or sailing, and to areas where I would like to know more, like business or finance. About writing, I often hear people praise someone for being a born writer, which is just nonsense.

I won’t say everyone can learn how to write well, but I will say that the more you do something, the better you get at it. That’s also true of writing. Working at it constantly is what makes great writers.

In your view, how can storytelling contribute to greater understanding across cultures and backgrounds without simplifying complex realities?

“Novel” means “something new”—literally. At least part of the reason we read novels and fiction is to see new things with new eyes. As someone who has observed or been immersed in many foreign cultures, I thought writing about them could show readers something new—things that could lead to insights about foreign places they may never have a chance to visit.

But writing novels isn’t just a didactic exercise. A novel is meant to entertain, and what better way to entertain than by showing something novel? Complex realities will always remain complex. Maybe the best we can do is to gradually chip away at the complexities and gradually make them more familiar so that they become less intimidating and mysterious.

Your recent book was selected as a winner of The Bookish Reader’s Pick Award from The Bookish Magazine. What did that recognition represent to you personally and professionally?

I was thrilled to receive the award. Honestly, it was a huge surprise and a bit overwhelming—like I suddenly had friends and readers, enthusiastic ones, on the other side of the world. I am grateful to The Bookish judges for their unexpected recognition and fervent interest in my work.

As you look ahead to future projects, what themes or questions are you most interested in exploring next, and why do they matter to you now?

My next book, now with the publisher, is a short story collection called WORLD OF WORLDS: Stories from Four Continents. My idea was to explore how young people behave under pressure in strange environments.

The storylines follow characters often traveling in remote places globally—from India to the Congo—but sometimes in Europe or very close to home in Chicago, Detroit, Texas, or the East Coast. The characters, like all young people, are trying to figure out who they are and what to do with their lives.

They often must cope with stark internal conflicts and terrible moral dilemmas. It’s tough for young people on the move, who are vulnerable, have illusions, and lack experience, friends, and support networks. Forced to think on their feet, they often face unpalatable choices. Will they make their choices with resilience and grace, or will they resist making any choice at all? And how does that turn out for them?

If you were to write your bio in your own words, what would you say? Looking ahead, what kind of long-term impact would you like your work to have?

Credit: Richard Scott Sacks

I’ve written three books, including two works of fiction. I worked over 35 years in diplomacy, foreign relations, and government. I worked for newspapers and a wire service. I’ve lived all over the world. I speak multiple languages. I married and raised a family.

I hope to be known and remembered as someone who made a difference. I hope to be an influential writer, and that means someone accomplished at their craft who called things by their real names and who stood up to injustice.

I also would like to be remembered as someone who did what he promised to do; who worked hard and provided for his family; who was faithful to his ideals; who was a true friend; who treated people fairly; who respected truth and knew it from a lie; who was willing to show the way to those searching for it; who knew he was part of a human continuum much bigger than any one person; and who always had time for children and for laughter.

“Complex realities will always remain complex.”
– RICHARD SCOTT SACKS

Links

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DRINKING FROM THE STREAM WINS LITERARY TITAN GOLD BOOK AWARD — that’s #10 for STREAM !!

RICHARD SCOTT SACKS Author — Sat, 7 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

2025-2026 ACCOLADES FOR DRINKING FROM THE STREAM

LITERARY TITAN GOLD BOOK AWARD
BREW Book Excellence Award 2026 for Political Fiction
Pencraft Award for Literary Excellence — 2026 Winter’s Best Book Winner Fiction - Adventure
International Firebird Book Award — First Place Winner / Thriller Category
Independent Press Award — 2026 Distinguished Favorite / Action-Adventure
2026 The Bookish Reader’s Pick Award
2026 Chrysalis/BREW Reader’s Choice Award
Fall 2025 Pinnacle Book Achievement Award — Best Book / Literary Fiction
2026 Literary Titan Silver Book Award
2025 Literary Global Book Award for Fiction — Winner / Thriller-Adventure

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LITERARY TITAN AUTHOR INTERVIEW

RICHARD SCOTT SACKS Author — Tue, 3 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Book Review: https://wp.me/p3cyvH-LSi

Author Interview - Richard Scott Sacks

Sometimes great events touch us deeply.

Drinking from the Stream follows two young men in 1971 who are on the run and attempting to escape their pasts by traveling to East Africa, where their personal reckonings unfold alongside violence. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?

In June 1972 when I was twenty-two years old and hitchhiking across Africa I was sitting in a student cafeteria at the University of Luanda reading the International Herald Tribune. Angola was then a Portuguese colony but armed African guerrillas in the countryside were fighting to overthrow white-minority rule. I had been hosted at the Zaire border by conscripted Portuguese soldiers who had seen combat with MPLA guerrillas. An article caught my eye that morning about ethnic killings in Burundi. I had been within fifty miles of Burundi, having hitchhiked from Ethiopia through Kenya, Uganda, and Rwanda, then to Zaire (Congo) and Angola. The article described a bloody uprising in late April 1972 where Hutu rebels had used pangas — machetes — to kill hundreds of unsuspecting Tutsi citizens with the idea of sparking a civil war to end Tutsi rule. Even more shocking were the slaughters by the Burundi army that followed. It turned out that unemployed Hutu school teachers — unable to find a job in Tutsi-ruled Burundi — had led the revolt. Burundi’s solution to the unemployment problem was to kill all the educated Hutus they could find. The Tutsi-led army countered the Hutu death squads with a much bigger, much better organized ethnic bloodletting of their own, killing any Hutu who had completed the fourth grade. Tens of thousands were already dead, the report said, and the killings were gathering momentum with no end in sight. By 1973 well over 200,000 Hutus had been murdered.

This made a deep impression on me. How could so many people be murdered so quickly? More importantly, why was the world ignoring it? And why and how did it come about? What if I had decided, as was entirely possible, to visit Burundi myself? And if I had, I would have been on the spot when the killings broke out. What then? The entire African continent seemed to be on a bloody run. A year or two back, peace had been restored to Zaire, formerly the Democratic Republic of the Congo, after ten years of mayhem and revolt. Mass ethnic killings were in full swing in 1972 in Uganda, when I was there, led by the Ugandan army under Idi Amin. Rwanda had seen bloody spasms of anti-Tutsi violence even before independence in the early 1960s. And all of southern Africa, not just Angola, was in revolt against white minority rule. The 1994 Tutsi holocaust in Rwanda was still twenty-two years away.

This is a coming-of-age novel, but a harsh one. What does “growing up” mean here?

I spent three years in Africa when I was quite young. I worked construction jobs in the bush and at line camps I bumped into white supremacists. Basically, they were American nazis. I kept my distance even though they sometimes tried to recruit me. They spoke openly of violence against Jews and Blacks. Listening to them made me extremely angry. They had no idea I was Jewish. But what would happen if I wasn’t Jewish and one of them thought I was? That was the inspiration for Jake Ries.

The characters discover that their choices impose responsibility that must be faced and borne, there’s no magic that will make it disappear, and its weight increases over time. Knowledge imposes its own burden. And it doesn’t matter if they never wished to make those choices or learn those things in the first place. Maybe they never asked for them, but they still can’t put them down.

What scenes were hardest to write—not technically, but ethically?

This may sound funny, given the extent of political chicanery in the plot, but the parts of the book that gave me the most trouble were working out Karl’s relationships with his girlfriends, first Helen, then Swee’Pea. Karl might have been conflicted about both those relationships, particularly in combination, but I wanted to present them as believable dilemmas not only for Karl, but for both women, while trying to be fair to all three.

What lessons from the 1970s feel disturbingly contemporary?

What I see today is that resentments never cease, that humanity is easily misled and memories are short; that peace is fragile, something not to be taken for granted; that politicians can seduce thousands, or millions, to contemplate unspeakable acts; that the great issues of the past, which we thought were finally settled, are never really settled; and that active individuals following the ancient moral codes or their own personal compass to judge right from wrong can do a great deal of good.

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BREW CERTIFICATE OF RECOGNITION

RICHARD SCOTT SACKS Author — Sun, 1 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

DRINKING FROM THE STREAM BREW Book Excellence Award 2026 Political Fiction

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STREAM WINS BREW BOOK EXCELLENCE AWARD FOR POLITICAL FICTION

RICHARD SCOTT SACKS Author — Sat, 31 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Embedded Youtube video removed, see original post to watch.

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GOODREADS REVIEW, DRINKING FROM THE STREAM, JANUARY 29, 2026

RICHARD SCOTT SACKS Author — Sat, 31 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

January 29, 2026

*****

Drinking from the Stream follows two young Americans, Jake and Karl, whose chance meeting turns into a long, hazardous journey across East Africa in the early 1970s. What begins as flight, Jake from a violent past in Louisiana, Karl from ideological and emotional dead ends in the United States, becomes immersion. As they move through Ethiopia, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, and beyond, their personal reckonings unfold alongside coups, ethnic violence, and the aftershocks of colonial rule. The novel braids coming-of-age restlessness with political catastrophe, asking what it means to stay human, or decent, when history is on fire around you.

I read this book with a mounting sense of unease, and I mean that as praise. Sacks doesn't offer Africa as backdrop or metaphor; he insists on its specificity. Roads that punish the body, bureaucracies that toy with fate, conversations that slide from flirtation to terror without warning. Jake's voice, in particular, is sharp-edged and morally alert, a man who knows he has crossed an invisible line and can't uncross it. The novel's early scenes on the oil rig, heavy with menace and casual hatred, establish a moral pressure that never really lifts, even when the landscape opens into beauty. I felt myself readingfaster, not because the prose rushed me, but because it refused to soften what it saw.

What stayed with me most were the arguments about race, revolution, guilt, and responsibility that erupt in buses, bars, and borrowed rooms. These exchanges feel earned rather than staged, the product of young people who are smart, frightened, idealistic, and often wrong. The author has little patience for slogans, whether they come from Western radicals or newly empowered strongmen, and that skepticism gives the book its bite. Sometimes the historical density is demanding, but it mirrors the characters' own overwhelm; ignorance here has consequences, sometimes lethal. By the end, I felt the weight of the knowledge the characters carry, knowledge they never asked for and can't put down.

This book will most reward readers of historical fiction, literary adventure, and political coming-of-age novels, especially those drawn to morally complex travel narratives. If you admire the restless intelligence of The Sheltering Sky or the political consciousness of A Bend in the River, Drinking from the Stream belongs on your shelf. It's a novel for readers who don't want reassurance so much as reckoning. This is not a story about finding yourself abroad; it's about discovering how much of the world you can carry back, and what it costs to do so.

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DRINKING FROM THE STREAM wins The BREW Book Excellence Award 2026 for Political Fiction

RICHARD SCOTT SACKS Author — Thu, 29 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

award #9 for DRINKING FROM THE STREAM

2025-2026 ACCOLADES FOR DRINKING FROM THE STREAM

BREW Book Excellence Award 2026 for Political Fiction
Pencraft Prize — Best Book for Fiction - Adventure
International Firebird Book Award — First Place Winner / Thriller Category
Independent Press Award — 2026 Distinguished Favorite / Action-Adventure
2026 The Bookish Reader’s Pick Award
2026 Chrysalis/BREW Reader’s Choice Award
Fall 2025 Pinnacle Book Achievement Award — Best Book / Literary Fiction
2026 Literary Titan Silver Book Award
2025 Literary Global Book Award for Fiction — Winner / Thriller-Adventure Category

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PENCRAFT PRIZE — BEST BOOK FOR FICTION / ADVENTURE — AWARD #8 FOR DRINKING FROM THE STREAM

RICHARD SCOTT SACKS Author — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

BY RICHARD SCOTT SACKS

Best Book Winners for the 2026 Winter PenCraft Seasonal Book Awards

Best Book for Fiction - Adventure

2025-2026 ACCOLADES FOR DRINKING FROM THE STREAM

Pencraft Prize — Best Book for Fiction - Adventure
International Firebird Book Award — First Place Winner / Thriller Category
Independent Press Award — 2026 Distinguished Favorite / Action-Adventure
2026 The Bookish Reader’s Pick Award
2026 Chrysalis/BREW Reader’s Choice Award
Fall 2025 Pinnacle Book Achievement Award — Best Book / Literary Fiction
2026 Literary Titan Silver Book Award
2025 Literary Global Book Award for Fiction — Winner / Thriller-Adventure Category

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AWARDS FOR DRINKING FROM THE STREAM

RICHARD SCOTT SACKS Author — Fri, 23 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

International Firebird Book Award — First Place Winner / Thriller Category

Independent Press Award — 2026 Distinguished Favorite / Action-Adventure

2026 The Bookish Reader’s Pick Award

2026 Chrysalis/BREW Reader’s Choice Award

Fall 2025 Pinnacle Book Achievement Award — Best Book / Literary Fiction

2026 Literary Titan Silver Book Award

2025 Literary Global Book Award for Fiction — Winner / Thriller-Adventure Category

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DRINKING FROM THE STREAM WINS THE BOOKISH READER’S PICK AWARD plus outstanding Book Review

RICHARD SCOTT SACKS Author — Sun, 11 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

January 7, 2026

The Bookish Magazine

The Bookish, The Bookish Awards

Drinking from the Stream by Richard Scott Sacks

What would follow you across continents if memory weighed more than luggage? Drinking from the Stream by Richard Scott Sacks explores that strange burden—discover how by reading the full review.

Drinking from the Stream by Richard Scott Sacks

Genre: Fiction

Sub-genres: Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Political Fiction

Themes: Moral choice, friendship, displacement, accountability

Review

This novel begins with consequence. Drinking from the Stream follows two young men who believe that distance might bring clarity, only to learn that experience has a longer reach than geography. Richard Scott Sacks builds his story around a simple but enduring human question: what happens when ideas meet events that refuse to stay abstract?

The novel opens with an incident that cannot be undone, and its echo shapes everything that follows. Rather than releasing tension through resolution, Sacks allows it to travel with his characters, quietly influencing decisions, silences, and friendships. As Jake and Karl move from classrooms and conversations into unfamiliar countries, the book shifts from intellectual exploration to lived reality without announcing the change. Readers feel it happen.

What distinguishes this novel is its attention to scale. Large historical forces are present, but always filtered through individual perception. Borders are crossed, but so are thresholds of understanding. The writing resists spectacle, favoring accumulation instead. Landscapes matter not because they are exotic, but because they press upon the characters’ assumptions. A road becomes a test. A conversation becomes a reckoning. A pause becomes a turning point.

Sacks writes with restraint and confidence, trusting readers to notice patterns rather than spelling them out. The prose is precise, grounded, and steady, particularly effective in moments when the characters confront the limits of their own certainty. Social scientists have long noted that exposure to unfamiliar environments can either harden beliefs or unsettle them; this novel explores the latter with patience and credibility. Ideals are examined not in theory, but through consequence.

Despite its seriousness, the book remains deeply human. Friendship is neither romanticized nor diminished. It is shown as sustaining, flawed, and sometimes inadequate. The bond between the central characters anchors the story, reminding readers that connection can exist even when answers do not. The result is a narrative that feels earned rather than engineered.

This book is for readers who appreciate fiction that engages history without reducing it to backdrop, and character without reducing it to confession. It is less suited to those seeking light diversion or swift reassurance. Readers drawn to thoughtful travel narratives, morally attentive storytelling, and literary fiction that trusts silence as much as speech will feel at home here.

Drinking from the Stream does not ask to be agreed with. It asks to be considered. That confidence, rare and refreshing, is its lasting strength.

Content Warning

This book contains depictions of violence, death, and historical human suffering that may be difficult for some readers.

The Bookish Reader’s Pick

This book has been honoured with The Bookish Reader’s Pick title, a prestigious category of The Bookish Awards. This recognition celebrates books that have deeply resonated with readers, capturing their hearts and minds through compelling storytelling, memorable characters, and meaningful themes. Chosen by passionate book lovers, this award highlights the power of literature to inspire, entertain, and leave a lasting impact.

Share Your Insights
Feel free to share your answers in the comments below:

What part of this post resonated with you the most, and why?
How does this post connect with your own journey?
Do you have any other bookish insights you’d like to share?

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DRINKING FROM THE STREAM WINS THE CHRYSALIS/BREW READER’S CHOICE AWARD FOR 2026 plus stunning Book Review

RICHARD SCOTT SACKS Author — Sun, 11 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Book Review: “Drinking from the Stream” by Richard Scott Sacks
By Mary Jones
JAN 8, 2026 #book review, #dailyprompt, #featured, #Friendship, #moral choice, #Political violence, #Reader Review, #the chrysalis brew project

What would you carry across continents if the weight wasn’t luggage but memory? Drinking from the Stream by Richard Scott Sacks explores that question—read the full review to follow where it leads.

Table of Contents

Review

“In spirit, it may remind some of the existential weight of Joseph Conrad, the political awareness of Graham Greene, or the restless motion found in Kerouac, though Sacks’s voice remains distinctly his own."

A sweeping literary journey where personal moral reckoning collides with the unforgiving currents of history.

Restless youth tested.

Some novels ask what happened; this one keeps asking why it mattered. Drinking from the Stream follows two young men who believe movement itself might offer clarity—one fleeing a private reckoning born on an offshore oil rig, the other escaping intellectual exhaustion inside Oxford’s stone walls—only to discover that motion does not dilute responsibility. Long before the phrase became fashionable, neuroscientists observed that sustained uncertainty heightens moral decision-making rather than numbing it, and Sacks builds his narrative on that very pressure, placing his characters where indecision is no longer a luxury.

The book unfolds with a visceral opening that readers will not forget: a poker table, a wrench, a fall, and the irreversible silence afterward. That private moment becomes the undertow beneath everything that follows, resurfacing quietly as the story carries Jake and Karl across airports, dirt roads, border posts, and conversations that oscillate between youthful bravado and dawning seriousness. Sacks does not rush these passages. Instead, he trusts accumulation: the way repeated near-misses, bureaucratic absurdities, and overheard arguments slowly reveal a larger pattern. Readers who notice the recurring maps, the shifting routes through Ethiopia and Uganda, and the way certain names reappear only briefly will recognize how carefully the geography mirrors the characters’ narrowing choices.

The prose is muscular without being showy, attentive to physical detail yet anchored in interior consequence. A reader can feel the weight of a backpack after days on the road, hear the unnatural quiet that precedes violence near Lake Victoria, and sense the brittle unease inside university debates that suddenly feel bloodless when compared to events beyond the classroom. The book’s historical grounding is evident not through lectures, but through placement: a conversation in a bar just before borders harden, a photograph of Idi Amin appearing not as spectacle but as context, and the chilling matter-of-factness with which entire communities can vanish from a landscape.

What makes the novel particularly resonant is its refusal to simplify. Sacks allows ideals to sound persuasive until they fail, allows courage to coexist with fear, and permits friendship to be both sustaining and insufficient. The editing largely supports this ambition, keeping a steady narrative line even as the story crosses continents and perspectives. The result is a novel with an undeniable gravity, one that invites reflection rather than insisting on conclusions.

My favorite moment arrives not during chaos, but during a pause: a quiet stretch of travel when Jake and Karl share space without certainty, and the reader realizes that the most dangerous crossings are no longer geographic but internal. That restraint is part of the book’s enduring effect.

This is a book for readers who appreciate literary travel narratives, morally serious fiction, and stories that trust the reader to sit with discomfort long enough for insight to emerge. It is less suited to those seeking light escapism or neatly resolved arcs. In spirit, it may remind some of the existential weight of Joseph Conrad, the political awareness of Graham Greene, or the restless motion found in Kerouac, though Sacks’s voice remains distinctly his own.

Drinking from the Stream does not shout its importance. It earns it, page by page, asking whether witnessing history is ever a neutral act and whether surviving it is the same as understanding it.

About the Author

Richard Scott Sacks is a U.S. diplomat and writer who served in Pakistan, Panama, Korea, Vietnam, Morocco, Mexico, and Washington, DC. Before government service, he traveled across Africa and surveyed in Congo. He reported for major U.S. newspapers, holds graduate degrees from National War College and Johns Hopkins SAIS, authored an award-recognized academic study, and lives in northern Virginia with his spouse and three children.

Book Details

Title: Drinking from the Stream
Author: Richard Scott Sacks
Genre: Fiction
Sub-genres:
- Historical Fiction
- Literary Fiction
- Political Fiction
Themes:
- Coming-of-age
- Political violence
- Racism
- Moral choice
- Friendship
Minimum Audience Age (assessment): 18+
Main Language Used: English

Book Themes

(Note: 0=none, 1=a few, 2=considerable, 3=pronounced, 4=excessive)

Sexual themes: 1
- Brief, non-graphic references tied to character development.
Religious themes: 1
- Present as background reflection, not doctrinal focus.
Violence, self-harm, etc.: 3
- Central events include death and historical mass violence.
Crude language, expletives, swearing: 2
- Contextual language reflecting setting and characters.
Other adult themes: 3
- Moral guilt, genocide, racism, political terror.

Rating

Content: 5
Writing Style / Visual Presentation: 5
Appeal to Target Audience: 4
Uniqueness: 5
Editing: 4
Other Factors: 4
Overall Average Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

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DRINKING FROM THE STREAM WINS INDEPENDENT PRESS AWARD — 2026 DISTINGUISHED FAVORITE

RICHARD SCOTT SACKS Author — Fri, 9 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Award-winning news

Hi Richard Sacks,

We are honored to share the news that your book has been announced a winner in Independent Press Award. Congratulations!

The following information was provided by Independent Press Award:

Congratulations! Your book has placed as a "Distinguished Favorite" in the Independent Press Awards.

Attached are the digital seals, and your book cover with the seal attached. Permalinks, sample press release, digital certificates and banners will be sent to you by the award (likely by January 19th) and 5 physical seals mailed to you.

Your book will have its title, author and category awarded listed in the Printed Word Reviews March 2026 magazine issue - INDEPENDENT PRESS AWARD Announcement, and then again listed in a Printed Word Reviews Holiday Gift Guide issue (Nov or Dec).

Many congratulations on this exciting achievement!

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DRINKING FROM THE STREAM WINNER OF PINNACLE BOOK ACHIEVEMENT AWARD "BEST BOOK IN THE CATEGORY OF LITERARY FICTION"

RICHARD SCOTT SACKS Author — Fri, 9 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Congratulations!

Your book has been chosen as one of the NABE Pinnacle Book Achievement Award Winners for Fall 2025.

Best Book in the Category of
LITERARY FICTION

Drinking From the Stream
Richard Scott Sacks

www.richardsacks.com

We have a Pinnacle Award Winners page on our website that you can visit at

Fall 2025 Pinnacle Book Achievement Awards

Thanks again for doing a great job on your book.

Happy New Year!

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Drinking from the Stream new winner of Literary Titan Silver Book Award! Plus Literary Titan Review.

RICHARD SCOTT SACKS Author — Fri, 9 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

**🏆 Congratulations!

We are proud to present you with the Literary Titan Book Award. Following the recent review of your book through our Book Review Service, it was automatically entered into our Literary Book Award competition. Your book deserves extraordinary praise, and we are proud to acknowledge your hard work, dedication, and writing talent. Start telling the world that you're an award-winning author because we will be!

Literary Titan Silver Book Awards

JAN 2

Posted by Literary Titan

REVIEW

Drinking from the Stream follows two young men on the run from themselves. Jake, a Nebraska kid turned Louisiana roughneck, flees the guilt of a killing on an oil rig. Karl, a disillusioned American student at Oxford, escapes the wreckage of the sixties and a painful relationship. Their paths cross, and they drift through Ethiopia, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania in the early seventies, bumping into coups, massacres and love affairs as they go. The book stretches from the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes region of Africa and on to Chile, and it ties private coming-of-age stories to state violence and postcolonial chaos.

I felt like the writing landed with real weight. The prose has muscle and rhythm, and it keeps a steady pace through long stretches of travel and talk. Scenes on the road, in trucks, on ferries, and in cheap guesthouses felt vivid to me. Dialogues carry a lot of the load. Characters argue about politics, race, faith, and guilt, and the conversations feel relaxed on the surface but tense underneath. I could sense the author's years in Africa in the way a village lane or a border crossing appears in a few sharp strokes. The flip side is density. Historical detail piles up. I stayed invested in Jake and Karl, and in Beatrice, Bridget and the others, because the book lets them be flawed, funny and sometimes selfish, not just mouthpieces for a lesson.

The novel looks at racism and antisemitism inside Jake's own story, then places him in countries where mass killing happens out in the open and on a terrifying scale. It plays with the dream of revolution and tears it apart. Young Westerners arrive full of ideals, then watch soldiers and militias burn those ideals along with villages. The book keeps asking who gets to walk away and who does not. Jake carries private guilt from the rig into places where guilt comes in rivers. Karl drags his Vietnam-era anger into a world where America is almost irrelevant. I felt anger, shame, and sadness while I read, and also a stubborn hope, because the story keeps circling back to friendship, loyalty, and small acts of courage. The novel does not pretend to solve anything. It simply puts you close to the fire and forces you to look.

I would recommend Drinking from the Stream to readers who enjoy historical fiction with grit, to people curious about East Africa in the early seventies, and to anyone who likes character-driven travel stories with real moral stakes. The book asks for patience and a strong stomach. It pays that back with a rich sense of place, big emotions, and a set of memorable characters.-Literary Titan

About the Author

Richard Scott Sacks holds master's degrees from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and National War College. He is an accomplished US diplomat with decades of experience on five continents. Living, traveling, and working in twenty African countries prior to government service, Mr. Sacks has also reported for the Miami Herald from Asunción, Paraguay, for the Associated Press from Detroit, Michigan, and for The Middlesex News from Framingham, Massachusetts. His nonfiction study coauthored with SAIS professor Riordan Roett, Paraguay: The Personalist Legacy, was named Outstanding Academic Book by Choice magazine. Drinking from the Stream is his first novel.

Celebrating the brilliance of outstanding authors who have captivated us with their skillful prose, engaging narratives, and compelling real and imagined characters. We recognize books that stand out for their innovative storytelling and insightful exploration of truth and fiction. Join us in honoring the dedication and skill of these remarkable authors as we celebrate the diverse and rich worlds they’ve brought to life, whether through the realm of imagination or the lens of reality.

Literary Titan Book Awards

The Literary Titan Book Awards stand as a mark of distinction, recognizing excellence in writing that is both innovative and impactful.

Every month, we bestow these awards on books and authors that have captivated our minds and hearts with their unique literary expressions. We seek out works that boast unique writing styles, the construction of vivid, immersive worlds, complex characters, and innovative ideas. The books we honor through this award are those that we have reviewed through our Book Review Service and found to resonate deeply due to their remarkable qualities.

The Literary Titan Book Award recognizes the hard work, dedication, and exceptional writing skills that authors invest in their books. We are proud to acknowledge these significant contributions to literature and to offer a platform where such talent can be celebrated.

The Literary Titan Gold Book Award is bestowed upon books that exemplify exceptional standards in the presentation of original content. For both fiction and non-fiction works, this award appreciates the meticulous development of unique characters or subjects presented in an authentically engaging context. Whether it is an innovative narrative structure for a fiction book or a compelling argumentation in a non-fiction work, we value the ability to support fresh themes and ideas. The award also honors the craft of elegant prose, showcasing a talent for transforming simple words into compelling, beautifully constructed text. This prestigious accolade is our tribute to books that represent an extraordinary achievement in the literary world.

The Literary Titan Silver Book Award is granted to books that demonstrate notable merit in the realm of literary creation, both in fiction and non-fiction genres. This award acknowledges books that deliver engaging and inventive content with a distinctive voice. We commend the careful cultivation of unique characters or subjects and their placement in an enriching and captivating context. It values works that successfully introduce or support interesting concepts, either through a well-structured narrative in fiction or through persuasive discourse in non-fiction. The award is an esteemed recognition of books that exhibit substantial talent, creativity, and commitment to the craft of writing.

Books have the ability to entertain and inform us. They can make the impossible possible. They are vehicles of time travel and windows into different perspectives. In books, authors are gods, and imagination is their power. Transforming words into characters, emotions, and worlds. Even if we never meet, we are connected by the stories we tell.

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TWO REVIEWS: NEXT BEST READ and AVA

RICHARD SCOTT SACKS Author — Sun, 4 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Next Best Read
27 reviews 5 followers

January 1, 2026
Drinking from the Stream is an ambitious, deeply considered novel that blends personal reckoning with historical awareness in a way that feels earned and authentic. Richard Scott Sacks writes with confidence and authority, grounding the book in lived experience and intellectual curiosity, and that combination gives the narrative a strong sense of credibility. The novel asks the reader to stay engaged emotionally and intellectually, and it rewards that attention with layered perspectives on responsibility, identity, and moral consequence. A major strength is the book’s scope. Sacks embraces complexity, whether political, cultural, or personal, and he trusts the reader to keep up. The conversations feel purposeful, the settings are vividly realized, and the characters are shaped by the forces around them, deeply connected to the era and its pressures. The result is a novel that feels substantial and thoughtful, one that lingers because it challenges easy conclusions. At times, the novel’s density may slow momentum for readers who prefer a faster progression through events. Still, this richness is part of the book’s appeal, especially for readers who enjoy fiction that engages with the real world in a meaningful way. Drinking from the Stream is a confident and intelligent work that combines storytelling with reflection, offering a reading experience that is immersive, demanding, and rewarding.

Ava
281 reviews

January 4, 2026
Some novels travel outward; Drinking from the Stream travels inward while crossing borders. Richard Scott Sacks places two young men on the road at a moment when history offers no safe detours. What begins with a personal rupture slowly widens into a reckoning with power, ideology, and consequence. The book’s strength lies in how lived experience replaces theory: lectures give way to checkpoints, arguments yield to silence, and maps stop being abstract. Sacks writes with control, allowing landscapes and conversations to accumulate meaning rather than announce it. The result is a thoughtful novel that respects the reader’s intelligence and patience. It is not about answers, but about how understanding changes once events are no longer distant. Readers who value serious fiction grounded in real places and moral tension will find it quietly absorbing.

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NEW BLURB FOR STREAM

RICHARD SCOTT SACKS Author — Tue, 30 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

DRINKING FROM THE STREAM follows two young men on the run from themselves. The story is set in the early 1970s, a time of violent upheavals when the Chinese Cultural Revolution and the Vietnam War marked a generation. Jake, a Nebraska kid turned Louisiana roughneck, flees the guilt of a killing on an oil rig. Karl, a disillusioned American student at Oxford, escapes the wreckage of the sixties and a painful relationship. Their paths cross. Together they jump on a plane to explore East Africa by thumb, drifting through Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, the Congo, Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania, and bumping into coups, massacres and love affairs as they go. Along the way they pick up Howard (South African), Beatrice (German), and Swee’Pea (Ugandan). The book stretches from the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes region of Africa and on to Chile, and it ties private coming-of-age stories to state violence and postcolonial chaos.

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My forthcoming book of short stories will be WORLD OF WORLDS

RICHARD SCOTT SACKS Author — Mon, 29 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The old title, A TRIP BY CANOE, was too pedestrian, too prosaic, too unimaginative. WORLD OF WORLDS is more evocative and ambitious, and it does a better job of suggesting the actual subject matter.

A sampling from WORLD OF WORLDS:

A solitary risk-taker climbs a mountain near Europe’s highest peak;

three Australians dazzle a traveler on the Kenya coast with their financial acumen and nerve;

a desperate alcoholic in the Congo latches onto a reckless Irish newsman;

a former student protester carries a letter for revolutionary guerrillas;

a western student travels to India and turns beggar for six months;

a white hitchhiker watches as his black South African friend is killed in a brutal road accident;

in Kenya a school teacher discovers that her fiancé’s family is deeply implicated in the ivory trade;

a bankrupt Wall Street fugitive tries to make a comeback by stealing a bag of diamonds in the Congo;

two young men buy a canoe and set out to explore the Congo River;

an overworked, bicycle-mad wire-service reporter plots an escape from girlfriend and employer.

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DRINKING FROM THE STREAM WINS THE 2025 LITERARY GLOBAL BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION-THRILLER/ADVENTURE

RICHARD SCOTT SACKS Author — Sun, 21 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

🏆 Congratulations — 2025 Literary Global Book Awards Category Winner

WINNER

FICTION-THRILLER/ADVENTURE

FULL BOOK TITLE: DRINKING FROM THE STREAM

AUTHOR NAME: Richard Scott Sacks

PUBLISHER NAME: Koehler Books

Dear LGBA Category Winner,

Congratulations! We are delighted to inform you that your book has been selected as a Category Winner in the 2025 Literary Global Book Awards.

After careful review by our distinguished panel of judges, your work stood out for its exceptional craft, originality, and literary impact. This year’s competition featured a strong and diverse field of entries from authors around the world, making this recognition especially meaningful.

The official 2025 Literary Global Book Awards Winner seal is attached to this email for your immediate use in marketing, promotional materials, and on your website or social media.

You may also view the full list of winners and finalists on our website:
👉 Literary Global Book Awards Results https://literaryglobal.com/

We commend you on this outstanding achievement and thank you for sharing your work with the global literary community. It is an honor to recognize your success.

Warmest congratulations,

The Literary Global Team

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LITERARY TITAN Reviews DRINKING FROM THE STREAM

RICHARD SCOTT SACKS Author — Sat, 20 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The prose has muscle and rhythm, and it keeps a steady pace through long stretches of travel and talk. Scenes on the road, in trucks, on ferries, and in cheap guesthouses felt vivid to me. Dialogues carry a lot of the load. Characters argue about politics, race, faith, and guilt, and the conversations feel relaxed on the surface but tense underneath. I could sense the author’s years in Africa in the way a village lane or a border crossing appears in a few sharp strokes.

The flip side is density. Historical detail piles up. I stayed invested in Jake and Karl, and in Beatrice, Bridget and the others, because the book lets them be flawed, funny and sometimes selfish, not just mouthpieces for a lesson. The novel looks at racism and antisemitism inside Jake’s own story, then places him in countries where mass killing happens out in the open and on a terrifying scale. It plays with the dream of revolution and tears it apart. Young Westerners arrive full of ideals, then watch soldiers and militias burn those ideals along with villages.

The book keeps asking who gets to walk away and who does not. Jake carries private guilt from the rig into places where guilt comes in rivers. Karl drags his Vietnam-era anger into a world where America is almost irrelevant. I felt anger, shame, and sadness while I read, and also a stubborn hope, because the story keeps circling back to friendship, loyalty, and small acts of courage.

The novel does not pretend to solve anything. It simply puts you close to the fire and forces you to look. I would recommend Drinking from the Stream to readers who enjoy historical fiction with grit, to people curious about East Africa in the early seventies, and to anyone who likes character-driven travel stories with real moral stakes. The book asks for patience and a strong stomach. It pays that back with a rich sense of place, big emotions, and a set of memorable characters.

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