Peter Turchi
The 1982 Sophie Kerr Winner
Peter D. Turchi, a professor of English at Arizona State University, is the author of five books and co-editor of three anthologies. His books include a novel, The Girls Next Door; a collection of stories, Magician; a nonfiction account of the exploits of treasure hunter Barry Clifford; an artist’s exhibit catalog, Suburban Journals: The Sketchbooks, Drawings, and Prints of Charles Ritchie; and Maps of the Imagination: The Writer as Cartographer. Maps of the Imagination was listed as one of the Outstanding Academic Titles of 2005 by Choice magazine and in 2011 was named one of “7 Must-Read Books on Maps” in an Atlantic Monthly blog and one of the best books of nonfiction by the staff of the New York Times Sunday magazine.
He has co-edited, with Andrea Barrett, A Kite in the Wind: Fiction Writers on Their Craft and The Story Behind the Story: Twenty-Six Stories by Contemporary Writers and How They Work; and, with Charles Baxter, Bringing the Devil to His Knees: The Craft of Fiction and the Writing Life. His short story “Night, Truck, Two Lights Burning” was produced as an artist’s book with images by Charles Ritchie, designed by Janine Wong. He is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.
He has taught at Northwestern University, Appalachian State and the University of Houston, and for fifteen years he directed and taught in the Warren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers.
