Peter Orner: Saying Something Slowly

Today, I’m excited to have acclaimed writer Peter Orner with us, author most recently of The Gossip Columnist’s Daughter. We’ll be talking about how he struggled with the structure and timeline of the book. It took him fourteen years. He explains that he was trying to say something slowly. We discuss exactly what that means and how to do it in a time when very little seems slow and it’s difficult to have the patience we need to let a story grow on the page.Watch a recording here. This audio/video version is available for one week. Missed it? Check out the podcast version above or on your favorite podcast platform.I don’t charge for subscriptions, but if you’d like, you can support my work with with a small donation here.To find Orner’s latest book as well as many other books by our authors, visit our Bookshop page.Looking for a writing community? Join our Facebook page.Born in Chicago, Peter Orner is the author of seven acclaimed books including Maggie Brown & Others, Love and Shame and Love, Esther Stories, finalist for the Pen/ Hemingway Award, and Am I Alone Here?, finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. His work has appeared in the New Yorker, the Paris Review, Best American Stories, and been awarded four Pushcart Prizes. A former Guggenheim fellow and recipient of the Rome Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Orner is chair of the English and Creative Writing Department at Dartmouth College. His latest, The Gossip Columnist’s Daughter, was recommended by the New York Times and was listed as one of the best books of the year by the New Yorker, The Chicago Tribune, and many more/ He lives with his family in Vermont, where he’s also a volunteer firefighter. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit 7amnovelist.substack.com