Peter Mountford’s Detonator: a reading and discussion with Kirsten Sundberg Lunstrum
Come celebrate the publication of Seattle writer Peter Mountford’s long-awaited third book, and first collection of stories, Detonator. A popular writing coach and instructor, Mountford’s short stories invite readers in with a balance of humor, sensuality, and compassion, while spanning continents to offer intimate portraits of flawed characters caught in the crosshairs of personal and political upheavals. Mountford’s award-winning stories have appeared in Guernica, Paris Review, Ploughshares, Boston Review, and elsewhere.
A long-time Hugo House favorite and regular instructor, Hugo House and Elliott Bay Books are thrilled to be hosting this celebration of Peter’s latest. Join us for a reception, followed by a brief reading and conversation with another beloved Hugo House instructor, Kirsten Sundberg Lunstrum, whose own next book, Outer Stars, winner of the 2025 Katherine Anne Porter Prize, will be out later in the fall. Books will be for sale by Elliott Bay Book Company.
Advanced Praise:
"Whatever sort of surprise you're after-funny, devastating, sexy, shocking, savage, tender, illuminating—Detonator will supply it, in Mountford's exquisitely tuned and attentive prose. Like Mary Gaitskill, Mountford has a gift for creating crystalline articulations of the messiness inside us. I loved these stories, and I learned from them."
—Karen Russell
"The stories in Detonator are hilarious, even when they are miserable. Their humor is unfailingly intelligent and it makes room for unexpected grace; Mountford wins you over even if you don't want to be won over."
—Mary Gaitskill
"Detonator is an inventive, perceptive, and darkly funny collection of stories, situated near the busy intersection of money, memory, and sex. Like a twenty-first-century Graham Greene, Peter Mountford has traveled the globe to create a kind of atlas of longing and loss."
—Jess Walter
The House bar will be open to serve alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages.Peter Mountford
Peter Mountford is the author of the novels A Young Man's Guide to Late Capitalism (2012 Washington State Book Award in fiction), and The Dismal Science (a NYT editor's choice). His work has appeared in The Paris Review, Southern Review, The Atlantic, The Sun, Granta, and The Missouri Review. He is currently on faculty at Sierra Nevada University's MFA program, teaches at Creative Nonfiction, Hugo House, and is a writing coach and developmental editor. Peter's former students and clients have gone on to publish numerous books and stories and articles, and include two NYT best-selling novelists (Tara Conklin and Rachel Griffin).
Teaching Style and Philosophy: I believe the best I can do for students is help free them from the tyranny of talent and the whims of inspiration, which are fair-weather friends. Instead, I want you to hone your personal aesthetic, and to develop an authorial voice, and most importantly develop fluency with the elements of craft. One you can control what's happening on the page with ease, producing publishable work is no longer a mysterious fluke, but a familiar and non-scary process.
Website: petermountford.com
Kirsten Sundberg Lunstrum
Kirsten Sundberg Lunstrum is the author of the novel Elita and the forthcoming short story collection Outer Stars, which won the 2025 Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction. Her three previous collections of short fiction are What We Do With the Wreckage (2017 Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction winner), This Life She’s Chosen, and Swimming With Strangers. Her short fiction and essays have appeared in Conjunctions, The Sun, Prairie Schooner, McSweeney’s, Ploughshares, and One Story, among other publications. Kirsten has been the recipient of a PEN/O. Henry Prize and fellowships from MacDowell and the Sewanee
Writers Conference. She teaches creative writing and literature and lives with her family near Seattle, Washington.
