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.

Everything to Live For — I

Posted on March 24, 2014 by Peter Selgin

Tell me: how would you feel if you saw yourself hanging by the neck from a crossbeam? How would you feel, confronted by those gasping dull eyes, that hanging slack jaw, that skin gone a pale shade of yellowish-gray, those … Continue reading →

Posted in Dreaming on Paper | Leave a comment

Under Less-Than-Ideal Circumstances

Posted on February 9, 2014 by Peter Selgin

Hungarian author and screenwriter János Székely (1901-1958) who wrote under the ironic (as you’ll see) name “John Pen,” would leave his New York City apartment mornings for aimless walks during the course of which he would be seen by passersby … Continue reading →

Posted in Dreaming on Paper | Leave a comment

On Making a Small Splash

Posted on April 11, 2013 by Peter Selgin

Everything is a metaphor. The sharp edge of a knife, a shallow stream, that ache in your back or belly. Three days ago I bought a boat. A row boat, that’s what I wanted, but not one of those bulky aluminum … Continue reading →

Posted in Dreaming on Paper | Leave a comment

Master of the Touching Detail

Posted on August 26, 2012 by Peter Selgin

Beckett said of him, “More than anyone else he has the instinct for the touching detail.” Anyone who has read the works of Emmanuel Bove (1898 – 1945) would agree. This is especially the case with Bove’s first novel, Mes … Continue reading →

Posted in Dreaming on Paper | Leave a comment