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.

The Draw Fan

Posted on July 14, 2011 by Peter Selgin

I remember the sound of the draw fan in the ceiling at the top of the stairs by the linen closet, thrumming through hot summer nights. My father, an inventor, had rigged up a crude timer switch, with a little … Continue reading →

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Taking a Break

Posted on April 16, 2011 by Peter Selgin

“Your First Page” followers will have noted a hiatus in my postings. The silence you hear is in fact the sound of your editor at work on his own fiction, toiling at Draft # (fill in outrageous figure) of his … Continue reading →

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A Self-Conscious Queen

Posted on November 12, 2010 by Peter Selgin

In the dressing room of the “Lipstick Lounge,” the Lady Javana “straighten[s] her wig” and “dab[s] lipstick from her teeth.” Lady Javana, we’re informed, is neither a man nor a woman, nor “a boy in a dress” nor “a female … Continue reading →

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Drive-by Girl

Posted on November 12, 2010 by Peter Selgin

A woman fresh out of a mixed-bag relationship is harassed by the specter of her ex-lover as she goes about her routine chores. This opening scene finds Dana taking the long way to her supermarket to avoid the school where … Continue reading →

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