Connor: What was the Stegner Fellowship like?

Peter: First thing on the list was just getting to the University! It took me forever, that first day, to find my way to Palo Alto, and ultimately to Stanford Village, which was old Army housing from the ‘40s that had long since supposed to be destroyed, but hadn’t been. They were stashing foreign students there, and odd people like me. As for the Fellowship itself, which began with a big outdoor welcoming reception, the class that year was remarkable for who was in it‌—‌it’s been written about more than once. A few years ago I actually got interviewed for a doctoral dissertation all about our group.

Connor: Who was in the session with you?

Peter: An amazing gang. I admit that at times I felt completely overwhelmed. There was Larry McMurtry, the first friend I made there, known now for Lonesome Dove and The Last Picture Show and the screenplay to Brokeback Mountain. He was a only a couple of years older than I was, and really talented. He wrote most of Leaving Cheyenne during our session. There was a 25 year-old Ken Kesey, at that point working on One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. There was Judith Rascoe, who was the niece or great-niece of a very influential critic named Burton Rascoe; Judith went on to write stories and some very good screenplays. There was a Scottish guy named Robin MacDonald, whose wife, Joanna Ostrow, was Bronx Jewish like me. Robin was the one with the fellowship, but Joanna turned out to be the real writer. She would sit in on the class and years later, after the class was long over, she published an excellent novel called In the Highlands Since Time Immemorial. There was Chris Koch, an Australian writer whose best-known work over here is probably The Year of Living Dangerously. He started that one while he was at Stanford. But my closest friend in the class was Gurney Norman, from Hazard, Kentucky. Gurney and I took to each other immediately. As we’ve often said, he was my first redneck and I was his first City Jew. We used to sit up nights comparing childhoods. We’re still in touch today. In fact, I visited him in Kentucky a few years ago and wrote all about it in the forward to The Rhinoceros Who Quoted Nietzsche, my first collection from Tachyon Publications.

Connor: How long did the Fellowship run?

Peter: Now it’s a two-year session, but back then it only lasted one. We had two six-month semesters, each run by a different visiting writer. During the first half, while Malcolm Cowley ran the class, nobody missed anything. Every time Malcolm lectured, the room was so full that people were literally sitting on the sills of the open windows, or leaning in through them. Not only did Malcolm know stuff, but if he could help you, he would. Of course, if you could figure out a way to do the story on your own, that was also fine‌—‌Malcolm’s ego was not tied up in this, just so long as the story worked.