Peter Orner is the guest. His new story collection, Last Car Over the Sagamore Bridge, is now available from Little, Brown. Tom Bissell says “Peter Orner is a true writers’ writer, which is to say a writer writers complain to writers about readers not reading. His novel The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo (a title, one senses, Orner had to fight hard to retain) ranks high among the best works of fiction about Africa ever written by an American, and his collection Esther Stories contains work to rival that of David Means and Tobias Wolff. Orner’s latest collection, Last Car Over the Sagamore Bridge, is bundled into four sections and includes more than fifty pieces of fiction…Imagine Brief Interviews with Hideous Men written by Alice Munro.” And Booklist says "Orner is an undisputed master of the short short story." Monologue topics: feedback, Max Millwood, Gregory Sherl, the show's format, my dullness and incompetence Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.