We don't want emotion handed to us - that's not emotion. You have to build and come from the reader's soul. — Peter Orner Copy Share Image
If a novel or a story works, you don't stop thinking about it; it doesn't truly end. — Peter Orner Copy Share Image
A collection, for me, is a book of very diverse stories that somehow speak to each other, across wide geography, across time,… — Peter Orner Copy Share Image
I try not to read my own books just because I would rather read somebody else. — Peter Orner Copy Share Image
What you can do with a short story that you can't do with a novel is punch someone in the gut, in… — Peter Orner Copy Share Image
I'm constantly trying to figure out how to crack that mystery; how to make a novel that has a sense of immediacy… — Peter Orner Copy Share Image
But this is exactly why I read--and don't belong to a book group--because reading is the most individual thing there is. Why… — Peter Orner Copy Share Image
My first book came out again - the re-issue from 2001. I was rereading it to make sure that I didn't miss… — Peter Orner Copy Share Image
John Colman Wood's The Names of Things is a thoughtful, patient, and ultimately rewarding book. It's about, among many other things, the… — Peter Orner Copy Share Image
Alexis Coe rescues a buried but extraordinarily telling episode from the 1890s that resonates in all sorts of ways with today. That… — Peter Orner Copy Share Image
Like no other writer in contemporary American literature, Brock Clarke has a way of looking at us, I mean looking straight at… — Peter Orner Copy Share Image
A novel is like a long relationship and a short story is a brief one that lingers - it lingers powerfully and… — Peter Orner Copy Share Image
“The lake is always east. East is always the lake. Anywhere else he's ever been he never knows where he is.” — Peter Orner Copy Share
“For we are like olives: only when we are crushed do we yield what is best in us.” — Peter Orner Copy Share
Rarely is the pain of losing someone expressed with such directness, energy, and, yes, humor. The grief in Evan Kuhlman'sWolf Boyis palpable, and so… — Peter Orner Copy Share
I'm pretty tight - I rewrite, in some cases, 70 to 80 times before I show it to people. — Peter Orner Copy Share
I feel like there are too many words in the world, and I think silence is so much more powerful than the glut of… — Peter Orner Copy Share
I usually have a location and then I put the character there. I love place names. I think I'm tricking myself by being so… — Peter Orner Copy Share
People have to follow their own strangeness. The minute they start making their own vision of the world flattened out so everyone can read… — Peter Orner Copy Share
I revise and revise and revise. I'm not even sure "revise" is the right word. I work a story almost to death before it's… — Peter Orner Copy Share
“Considering the multitude of things that happen in any one person’s life, it seems fairly unlikely that those little boys remembered the incident for… — Peter Orner Copy Share
“Chicago does not go to the world, the world comes to Chicago! Who needs New York? Who has taller buildings than our tall buildings?… — Peter Orner Copy Share
We don't want emotion handed to us - that's not emotion. You have to build and come from the reader's soul. — Peter Orner Copy Share
I think anything we do - eating, walking down the street, online shopping - gives you another perspective on writing stories. — Peter Orner Copy Share
“Leo wondered what unknown sin they must have committed in some previous life to deserve this. The answer came the same way their feet… — Peter Orner Copy Share
