A native of Minnesota, Panning once served as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Philippines. Her first short-story collection, The Price of Eggs, was published in 1992. Her creative nonfiction and short stories have appeared in such publications as the Beloit Fiction Journal, Prairie Schooner, South Dakota Review, Black Warrior Review, and In Short II: An Anthology of Brief Creative Nonfiction. Panning’s essay “Trailer Court: Rolling” won the Passages North Thomas Hruska Nonfiction Prize. Her other honors include the Bellingham Review’s Annie Dillard Award for Creative Nonfiction, the New Letters Literary Award (First Place, Fiction), and the Hackney Literary Award, which is awarded for an unpublished novel.