Molly Olguín and Kirsten Sundberg Lunstrum read from their new books

Third Place Books is pleased to welcome local authors Molly Olguín and Kirsten Sundberg Lunstrum to our Ravenna store to launch their new books, and . In The Sea Gives Up the Dead, historical fiction, horror, and fantasy tangle together in a queer garden of love, grief, and longing. Unfolding during the moody Pacific Northwest winter of 1951, Elita follows Bernadette Baston, scholar of child development and language acquisition, as she travels to a penitentiary on the remote island Elita in the Puget Sound to consult on a curious case: two guards have discovered an animal-like adolescent girl living alone in the cold woods beyond the Pr*son’s walls. This event is free and open to the public.

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“A wunderkammer of beauty and sorrow.”—Carmen Maria Machado, author of In the Dream House • “Witty, witchy, darkly brilliant”—Andrea Barrett, author of Natural History and Ship Fever • “Mix the wildness of fairy tales with horror.”—Kim Brock, Joseph-Beth Booksellers • “Fantastical, queer, wildly inventive stories.”—Austin Carter, Pocket Books Shop • “A mouthwatering ride.”—Desirae Wilkerson, Paper Boat Booksellers • “Absolutely fantastic!”—Randy Schiller, Left Bank Books, St. Louis, MO

A lovesick nanny slays a dragon. The devil tries to save her mother. A girl drowns and becomes a saint. Three kids plot to blow up their dad, a grieving mother sails the sea to find her son’s grave, a scientist brings a voice to life, and a mermaid falls into the power of a witch. Here, historical fiction, horror, and fantasy tangle together in a queer garden of love, grief, and longing.

An American literary take on the Nordic noir genre

Unfolding during the moody Pacific Northwest winter of 1951, we follow Bernadette Baston, scholar of child development and language acquisition, as she travels to a penitentiary on the remote island Elita in the Puget Sound to consult on a curious case: two guards have discovered an animal-like adolescent girl living alone in the cold woods beyond the Pr*son’s walls. There are few answers, but many people who know more than they are saying. According to official reports, the girl, dubbed Atalanta, does not speak. Is her silence protecting someone? The Pr*son warden, court-appointed guardian, and police detective embroil Bernadette in resolving a secret that the tight-knit island community has long held, and her investment in the girl’s case soon becomes more personal than professional. As a mother, wife, and woman bound by mid-twentieth-century expectations, Bernadette strategizes to retain the fragile control she has over her own freedom, identity, and future, which becomes inextricably tied to solving Atalanta’s case.

Molly Olguín is a queer writer, educator, and monster aficionado. Her debut collection The Sea Gives Up the Dead was chosen by Carmen Maria Machado for the 2023 Grace Paley Prize in Short Fiction, and was selected as an Indies Introduce title by the American Booksellers Association. She has stories in magazines like Quarterly West and The Normal School. She was the recipient of the Loft Mentor Series Fellowship in 2019. With Jackie Hedeman, she is the creator of the audio drama The Pasithea Powder. She teaches English and creative writing to high school students in Seattle.

Kirsten Sundberg Lunstrum is the author of the novel Elita (published by TriQuarterly Press/Northwestern University Press in January, 2025) and the story collection Outer Stars, which won the 2025 Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction (UNT Press) and will be published in the autumn of 2025. Her three previous collections of short fiction are What We Do with the Wreckage, which won the 2017 Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction (University of Georgia Press in 2018); Swimming with Strangers (Chronicle Books, 2008); and This Life She’s Chosen (Chronicle Books, 2005). Kirsten’s short fiction has been honored with a PEN/O. Henry Prize, and her stories have appeared widely in journals, among them The Sun, Prairie Schooner, Ploughshares, One Story, and McSweeney’s. She has held fellowships from MacDowell, Sewanee, the Jack Straw Writers Program, and the Willa Cather Foundation. Kirsten is a member of the English Department faculty at Seattle’s Bush School.

Founded in 1998 in Lake Forest Park, Washington, Third Place Books is dedicated to the creation of a community around books and the ideas inside them. With locations in Lake Forest Park and Seattle's Ravenna and Seward Park neighborhoods, Third Place Books is proud to serve the entire Seattle metro area. Learn more about their event series at thirdplacebooks.com/events

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