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Luber: Hey everyone – Marc Luber here – Are you one of the many lawyers out there who
secretly wants to be an author? That’s what we’re looking at today on JD Careers Out
There – so stick around! [THEME SONG] Alright – As you may already know, at JDCOT we explore
career paths you can do with a law degree - both in and out of law – and we do that
to help you find a career that fits you – and help you succeed. Our guest today is Peter
Orner – and he’s not only an internationally critically acclaimed author, but he’s also
my old friend and college roommate. His latest book, Last Car Over The Sagamore Bridge, is
a New York Times Editor’s Choice Book AND an Amazon.com Top 10 story collection for
2013. Peter is a Guggenheim Fellowship recipient, he’s been translated in 7 languages, his
books are published by Little Brown and ALL OF THEM are big award winners: including Esther
Stories, The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo, and Love & Shame & Love. Peter’s work has
appeared in publications including the New York Times, Atlantic Monthly, Granta, Paris
Review & Salon. And on top of all that, Peter’s also a Professor of Creative Writing at San
Francisco State University. I know he’s psyched to share his insights with all of
you – and I’m really psyched that he’s here – so let’s meet Peter! Peter, welcome
to JDCOT.
Orner: Oh, it’s great to here, Marc. Thanks for having me.
Luber: Yeah, thank you for being here. I’m really psyched you’re here, because I think
so many lawyers want to be writers - so I think it’s going to being really helpful
since you’re a lawyer who’s become a critically acclaimed author. I think it’s going to
be really helpful to get your insider’s perspective for our audience. So let me ask
you this first, Peter. Since our audience is likely doing a lot of soul searching and
trying to figure out if they should be writers, I think it would be really helpful to hear
about your story and how you first learned that this is the path you wanted to go down.
And I could tell everybody that when we were college roommates, you used to keep me up
all night because you were printing your damn stories all the time! So did you know even
then? Tell us your story.
Orner: Well, you know, when I was I keeping you up at night printing my stories, I knew
I wanted to write. And I think wanting to write and being a writer and getting paid
for it, as you know, is very, very different. But I’ve always, since I was a little kid,
the only thing that I think I could do well, was to tell stories. And in English class
or Literature class or whatever it was in Junior High, I wasn’t very good at Grammar,
I wasn’t very good at tests on what happened in stories but what I was good at, was telling
my own stories. So I’ve always done it. I mean even, from a very early age on and
certainly in college. As you know, I didn’t go to class too much, I just wrote stories
and I was lucky that there were certain classes in college that gave me credit for writing
stories. And so I’ve always read and wrote forever and ever. But after college, spending
a few years waiting tables and kind of soul searching, as you said, like a lot of people
who might be watching this might be in the same boat, I wasn’t sure what to do. I had
always been interested in politics. I had always been in interested in Criminal Law,
in particular and I went to law school. And I was happy going to law school. I really
enjoyed law school. I went to Northeastern College of Law in Boston and pretty much loved
it. But when I was in college, in law school, I was still doing what I’ve always done,
which is write stories. And in fact, in some of the more maybe duller classes, I spent
even more time writing. I remember I got a lot of writing done, in particular in Trust
and Estates because the professor would just drone on. He’d sit there and he’d drink
his Diet Cokes and he would just drone. For some reason it was sort of like a nice ... it
was almost like a ... what do you call those machines that you use to sleep? It kind of
lulled me and I got a ton of work done. Anyway, I graduated from law school and by that time
I was starting to publish stories. And I got a lot of encouragement and I thought I would
give a life of writing a shot and it’s worked out since then. But you know, it kind of helped
frame that for me - and also the last thing I would say, is that law school is all about
stories. As you all know, lawyers watching this, law is all about stories. So in watching
and reading about how people tell them and how people advocate for their side, et cetera,
et cetera. So, for me, the transition between becoming a lawyer and then becoming a working,
publishing writer was ... they weren’t inconsistent; it was a sort of a trajectory that made sense
to me, even though it might sound weird.
Luber: Alright, so who relates to Peter’s story about sitting in class and WRITING instead
of listening to the professor? If that’s you, you’re for sure gonna want to check
out the full interview, where Peter talks about how he went from “I like to write”
to “I’M AN AUTHOR”. If you’re watching on YouTube, please give us the Thumbs Up if
this was helpful. And whether you’re Podcasting OR watching, please visit us at JDCOT.com.
There you’re gonna hear lots more from Peter not just on his own story but on what it’s
like to be an author, how the publishing business works and how you can break in.