Author Archives: Peter Selgin

About Peter Selgin

Peter Selgin is the author of Drowning Lessons, winner of the 2007 Flannery O’Connor Award for Fiction, Life Goes to the Movies, a novel, two books on the craft of fiction, and several children’s books. His memoir, Confessions of a Left-Handed Man, was short-listed for the William Saroyan International Prize. His latest novel, The Water Master, won the William Faulkner Society Prize, selected by Random House Senior Editor Will Murphy. His work has won the Missouri Review Editors’ Prize, the Dana Award, six Best American Essay notable essay citations, and two selections for the Best American series. A second memoir, The Inventors, is forthcoming from Hawthorne Books in April of 2016. He teaches at Antioch University’s MFA program and is Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Georgia College & State University.

Pure Flux: The Author Revisits His Murdered Darlings

Posted on June 4, 2010 by Peter Selgin

Like Depression-era mothers, we fiction writers hate throwing things away. Instead of hoarding used Saran Wrap and dunked tea bags for rainy days, we squirrel away used words: titles, phrases, sentences, paragraphs—sometimes whole chapters or scenes—stuff that never made it … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

The Muffin Man

Posted on May 25, 2010 by Peter Selgin

Do you know the muffin man, / The muffin man, the muffin man, / Do you know the muffin man, / He lives on Drury Lane? Yes, I know—or I knew—the Muffin Man, though I’m not sure I knew his … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Leaving This Place

Posted on April 30, 2010 by Peter Selgin

Soon I will leave this place. No more house shaped like a big A. No more gentle walks over spiky pine cones down the gentle slope to the gray, lonesome dock. No more swimming across the lake and back. No … Continue reading →

Posted in Dreaming on Paper | Leave a comment

Hewlett-Packard

Posted on March 27, 2010 by Peter Selgin

Corvallis, Oregon, 1980. 4:30 a.m. Too tired to go home and sleep, you wander with your guitar to the park, a square block of grass in the middle of the town. Under a full moon the grass glows. At the … Continue reading →

Posted in Dreaming on Paper | Leave a comment