Peter Orner, a creative writing professor known particularly for his expertise in short stories, was recently awarded the 2007 Bard Fiction Prize for his debut novel “The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo,” that was published in April 2006.

Orner has been teaching creative writing in the master’s program for the past four years. He is also the author of the award-winning “Esther’s Stories,” a collection of short stories. The Second Coming is his first full-length novel.

“What is so wonderful about fiction, is that you don't have to worry about what really happened,” said Orner. “But you are free to imagine what could have happened.”

The Bard Fiction Prize is awarded annually to the year’s most promising young fiction writer and Orner’s gift of word fit the bill.

“His narrative vision allows the reader to reside concurrently in suggestive and declarative realms, which tell the story of intimacy among the humiliations of social and racial inequities,” the Bard Committee said on their web page after announcing Orner as the prize winner in October.

Along with a monetary grant, Orner will also be living as a writer-in-residence in Hudson Valley, NY, home of Bard College.

“I'll be at Bard this spring semester working on a new book that will probably take me more years than I want to think about,” said Orner.

But Orner is no stranger to the strenuous years it takes to write a full-fledged novel.

“I started [“The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo”] in 1994, and wrote another book in between, but it was always on my mind,” remembers Orner. “Finally, about five years ago [it] came together.”

Set in Namibia after its war against South Africa, “The Second Coming” tells the story of an American volunteer who finds himself falling for Mavala, the mysterious freedom fighter, who, like many other Namibians, struggles to find herself after the fighting has ceased.

Just as the fictional American from Cincinnati spent time in the remote veldts of Namibia learning the history and its people, Orner too gained an appreciation for a culture much different than his own.

“I spent time during the early 90's in Namibia and I taught on a remote farm similar to the one I describe in the book,” Orner recalls. “Even long after I came back to the States, I'd have visions of that endless veldt, that heat, and all my friends that I've missed.”

Orner, along with Chris Abani, Nigerian author of “Graceland” and winner of the Pen Hemingway award, will be conducting a reading at the Poetry Center on February 1st at 7 P.M. Both authors will be discussing matters on the written word and reading excerpts of their own novels.

After a second reading on the February 6th at Stanford, Orner will be leaving to Bard College February 8th and beginning his newest novel. As he does, he leaves his students with a little advice.

“Read a lot and never think that you don't have a story worth telling,” he said.