Peter Orner is the author of two novels, Love and Shame and Love, a New York Times Editor's Choice Book recently published in paperback and The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo, set in Namibia, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award.

Orner's first book, a collection, Esther Stories was a Finalist for the Pen Hemingway Award and is being re-issued in April, 2013, with a forward by Marilynne Robinson. His second collection, Last Car Over The Sagamore Bridge will be published by Little, Brown in August, 2013. Orner's work has appeared in the New York Times, The Atlantic, The Paris Review, Granta, McSweeney's, and Best American Stories.

The winner of two Pushcart Prizes, Orner was a Guggenheim Fellowship recipient in 2006. He is also the editor of two non-fiction books, Underground America and Hope Deferred: Narratives of Zimbabwean Lives, both published by McSweeney's. Born in Chicago, Peter Orner lives in San Francisco and is a Professor at San Francisco State.

Peter's workshop will focus on some of the elemental (and so often mysterious) things that can make our stories vital. What is it about certain stories that get us in the gut and the heart, as well as the head?

WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION