About Me:

While a first year law student at the University of Buffalo I met Anthony Burgess, then a visiting professor of literature, who read several short stories and a novel in progress, and advised me to think seriously about quitting law school to write full-time. I applied for and was granted a two-year leave of absence, but passed it up at the last minute to complete my degree.

I opened my own trial practice in Manhattan, and worked on my first novel during morning and evening hours. Ten years in the writing, that book was too esoteric and too poorly crafted for the hardcover fiction market. As a result, I decided to close my office and write full-time. Trading a lucrative lifestyle for a bohemian one never seemed a hard choice for me, but I soon learned that living a writer's life does not a writer make. You must also learn the craft. My succeeding novels were completed quickly and were better written, but were still unpolished. In 1998 I began writing short stories to better focus on the craft.

In 2003-04 I returned to the novel form, and completed another book, but workshopping the book convinced me that my craft needed an upgrade. In the Fall 2006 I began the Creative Writing MFA program at City College of New York (CCNY). I have been learning from writers like Frederic Tuten (The Adventures of Mao on the Long March), Linsey Abrams (Charting by the Stars), Mark Jay Mirsky, founding editor of Fiction literary magazine, and author of novels (The Red Adam), criticism (Dante, Eros, Kabbalah), and translation (Diaries: Robert Musil 1899-1942), and J. Fred Reynolds (Preferential Treatment and Other Oklahoma Stories).

I am currently writing my thesis, a novel about a small group of young bohemians that come together in NYC in the 80's, and a new book of short stories. I am also an assistant editor on the staff of FICTION MAGAZINE, and am teaching both writing and literature as an adjunct assistant professor at City College. My experience at City College has been and continues to be comprehensive, enlightening, and as rewarding as any I have known.

From 1998 to 2004, while focusing on short fiction, I was fortunate enough to have stories/novel excerpts published in various literary journals, as follows:

-Truth and Truth, Sulphur River Literary Review, 2004
-Libby's Foot, RiverSedge, 2002;
-Knowledge and Illusion, Prairie Winds, 2002;
-Relativity, River Oak Review, 2001;
-Past Light and Cold, Lynx Eye, 2000;
-Four Pairs of Shoes, Folio, 1999;
-Three Men of God, South Dakota Review, 1999;
-My Stranger, The Licking River Review, 1999;
-Libby's Foot, Nebo, 1999;
-Mean Yellow Jacket, Reader's Break, 1998;

(These stories/novel excerpts are reprinted in their entirety on my Fiction Site.)

Email: gdpeters at nyc dot rr dot com

This writer is looking for an agent.