11/21/2020 // Day 11: The Collected Stories of Peter Christopher and a Novel, Feral Angels
We are thrilled to announce the forthcoming publication of The Collected Stories of Peter Christopher and a novel, Feral Angels.
Photo by Bill Hayward
Who is Peter Christopher?
Peter was the author of the short story collections Campfires of the Dead published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1989. He was writer-in-residence for the Writer's Voice Workshop and guest lecturer at Columbia University, New York University, the University of Florida, and Portland State University's Haystack Program in the Arts and Sciences. He taught as an associate professor of Writing and Linguistics at Georgia Southern University, and in 2001, he won the Dorothy Golden Excellence in Teaching Award.
Peter curated a reading series for the New York Public Library and LaMama La Galleria Second Classe. He was a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Literature and a Grinter Fellowship from the University of Florida. His stories have won the Mari Sandoz Award, First Place in Story's Short Fiction Competition, and honorable mention for the Rick DeMarinis Short Story Award.
Peter was influential in the Dangerous Writing movement in Portland, OR, founded by former classmate Tom Spanbauer, which notably produced the cult writer Chuck Palahniuk. Palahniuk has written about Peter’s influence on his writing, most recently in his 2020 book Consider This: Moments in My Writing Life After Which Everything Was Different.
In addition to his fiction and teaching, Peter was an award-winning newspaper reporter and columnist.
He passed away from cancer in 2008 at the age of 52.
Can You Tell Us About the Story Collection and the Novel?
Of course! The Collected Stories of Peter Christopher is exactly as it sounds. We will be publishing the stories in Campfires of the Dead along with an unpublished story collection titled, The Living, as well as some other stories we’ve gathered.
The novel, Feral Angels, is a large book and was many years in the making. Since Peter was known for his short stories, this 400-500 page book is an anomaly. Peter was a regimented writer and wrote daily. He finished writing Feral Angels on the last morning he woke up to write in his home before going to the hospital and four days before he passed away. The file has remained unopened and saved on a back up until this year, and we believe the timing for this novel couldn’t be better.
Where Can I Read Peter’s Work?
Unfortunately, Peter’s work has been long out of print, so we’ve decided to release a digital download of his story Lost Dogs, which was published in the 1996 Summer Issue of Story.
I Have Questions About This Project. How Can I Contact You?
Media, reviewers, or anyone with questions may contact us here. We’ll try our best to reply as soon as possible, and we thank you for understanding if we take a few days to respond.
— Andrew Wilt, Publisher, 11:11 Press