Posts by author
Peter Orner
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THE LONELY VOICE #6: The Rumpus Short Story Column, Death and the Dying Chekhov
The lonely voice is coming to you today from San Francisco General Hospital. I’m in the cafeteria. I come here sometimes. It’s a nice place to be distracted and the pudding is good. I’m thinking about Chekhov, or trying to,…
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THE LONELY VOICE #5, The Rumpus Short Story Column: We Are All Lizzie Borden
This happens sometimes. I got murder on the brain this morning.
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THE LONELY VOICE #4: John Edgar Wideman Confronts
Some stories cut so close you can only tell them in shards.
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THE LONELY VOICE, a Column About Short Stories: “Around the Dear Ruin”
One of the great stories of my adopted city, San Francisco, is without a doubt “Around the Dear Ruin” by Gina Berriault. It also might be one of the saddest and cruelest. I’ve probably read this brief story twenty, maybe…
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A Column About Short Stories—Waterboarding Leonardo Sciascia
I sometimes wonder if the precarious place that short stories hold in the world of publishing (and reading) is because good stories are inherently threatening. They can cause a lot of trouble in a few pages and knock a reader’s…
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THE LONELY VOICE: A New Column About The Short Story by Peter Orner
The difference between a short story and a novel is the difference between a pang in your heart compared to the tragedy of your whole life. It’s all a matter of how you feel the pain. Read a great story…
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Brief Thoughts on Alvaro Mutis’s “The Tramp Steamer’s Last Port Of Call”
There is a line of James Wright I have always loved: “Where is the sea, that once solved the whole loneliness of the Midwest?” Re-reading one of the great modern sea stories, “The Tramp Steamer’s Last Port of Call,” by…