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.
