Peter Orner

Peter Orner is an American writer who spilts his time between San Francisco and Bolinas, California. He is the author of two novels, two story collections and a book of essays. Orner is a Professor of Creative Writing at San Francisco State University and a volunteer fire fighter in Bolinas.

Orner was born in Chicago. He graduated from the University of Michigan in 1990 and later earned a law degree from Northeastern University and an MFA from the Iowa Writer's Workshop.

In 2001 Orner published his first book, Esther Stories, which won a prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Goldberg Prize for Jewish Fiction, and was a finalist for the Pen Hemingway Prize and the Young Lion’s Award from the New York Public Library. Of Esther Stories, The New York Times wrote, "Orner doesn't just give bring his characters to life, he gives them souls."

In 2006, Orner published his first novel, The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo, which was set in Namibia, where Orner worked as an English teacher in the 1990s; it won the Bard Fiction Prize and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Orner was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2006, as well as the two-year Lannan Foundation Literary Fellowship in 2007 and 2008.

Orner served as editor of two non-fiction books, Underground America (2008) and Hope Deferred: Narratives of Zimbabwean Lives (2010), both published by McSweeney's / Voice of Witness. His 2011 novel, Love and Shame and Love received positive reviews and was a New York Times Editor's Choice Book, and California Book Award winner.

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