Peter Orner

Peter Orner is the author of seven books, the memoirs/ essay collections, Still No Word from You, a finalist for the PEN: Diamonstein/Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay, and Am I Alone Here?, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, as well as the story collection, Maggie Brown and Others, a New York Times Notable Book, and the novel, Love and Shame and Love, winner of the California Book Award. Other books include Last Car Over the Sagamore Bridge, The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo (finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award and Winner of the Bard Fiction Prize), and Esther Stories, (finalist for the Pen/Hemingway Award). Peter is also the editor of three books of oral history for the McSweeney’s/ Voice of Witness series. His work has appeared in the New Yorker, the Atlantic, Harper’s, the Paris Review, and been awarded four Pushcart Prizes as well as the Rome Prize and a Guggenheim Fellowship. A new novel, the Gossip Columnist’s Daughter, will be published by Little, Brown in 2025. Peter has taught at San Francisco State University, the University of Iowa, Northwestern, and currently is chair of the English and Creative Writing Department at Dartmouth College. Orner recently led a major CW short course on James Joyce’s Ulysses. [Fiction]

Photo: Pawel Kruk