Peter Orner

Peter Orner is an American writer. He is the author of three novels, three short story collections and two books of essays. Orner holds the Professorship of English and Creative Writing at Dartmouth College and was formerly a professor of creative writing at San Francisco State University. He spent 2016 and 2017 on a Fulbright Grant in Namibia teaching at the University of Namibia.

Early life and education Orner was born in Chicago and grew up in Highland Park, Illinois. He graduated from the University of Michigan in 1990. He later earned a Juris Doctor degree from Northeastern University School of Law, and an MFA from the Iowa Writer's Workshop.

Career In 2001, Orner published his first book, Esther Stories.

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 for 2007–08.

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 in their Criticism category. The book has garnered positive reviews in The New York Times, The New Yorker, and a number of other publications. In 2023 he released his second collection of essays, Still No Word from You: Notes in the Margin, which was a finalist for both the Vermont Book Award and the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay.

Orner's most recent collection of stories, Maggie Brown & Others, was released on July 2, 2019, and has received overwhelmingly positive reviews from the likes of the New York Times, The Washington Post and Chicago Tribune.

His third novel, The Gossip Columnist's Daughter, which explores the intersection between a decades-long family history and the true-life unsolved mystery of a Hollywood starlet, was released on August 12, 2025. It was named one of the 10 Best Books of 2025 by the Chicago Tribune and a Best Book of 2025 by The New Yorker.

Personal Orner's older brother, Eric Orner, is the author of the graphic novel Smahtguy: The Life and Times of Barney Frank and creator of the comic The Mostly Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Green.

He also has two younger siblings, William and Rebecca Orner. Orner has a long-time association with Camp Nebagamon, an overnight camp at Lake Nebagamon in northern Wisconsin, where he has been a counselor, wilderness trip leader, and village director. He has also worked as human rights observer in Chiapas, Mexico; a cab driver in Iowa City; and a sewer department worker for the city of Highland Park.

Honors Finalist, PEN/Hemingway Award (2002) Finalist, Young Lions Fiction Award (2002) Rome Prize in Literature, American Academy of Arts and Letters (2002–2003) Guggenheim Fellowship (2006) Lannan Literary Fellowship (2006) Finalist, John Sargent Sr. First Novel Prize (2006) Bard Fiction Prize (2007) Finalist, Los Angeles Times Book Prize Best Fiction (2007) First Novelist Award (2007) California Book Awards, Silver Medal for Fiction (2012) Finalist, National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism (2016) Samuel Goldberg Award for Jewish Fiction New York Times Notable Book (for Esther Stories and Maggie Brown & Others) Edward Lewis Wallant Award (for Maggie Brown & Others, 2020) Shortlisted for PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay (for Still no Word from You, 2023)