Peter Mountford: DETONATOR (with Danielle Evans)

Peter Mountford visits all the way from Seattle to discuss his rich, captivating--even addictive--new short story collection, Detonator, in conversation with Danielle Evans! The characters in Mountford's Detonator are struggling to do better, to save their souls. These stories are deeply preoccupied with the consequences of human decisions—these often funny and sometimes painful stories highlight flawed but fascinating characters making flawed choices in the hopes of achieving grace, or at least growth.

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A novelist, short story writer, and essayist, in recent years PETER MOUNTFORD has also become a popular writing coach and instructor with clients all over the world. His former clients and students have published widely, and include two recent New York Times bestsellers.

Author of the novels A Young Man's Guide to Late Capitalism (2012 Washington State Book Award in fiction), and The Dismal Science (NYT editor’s choice). His next book, a collection of short stories called Detonator, will be out from Four Way Books in 2025. Peter’s short fiction has appeared in Paris Review, Guernica, Missouri Review (twice), Ploughshares, Southern Review, Zyzzyva, Conjunctions, and Boston Review, where he won second place in the 2007 contest judged by George Saunders. His personal essays have appeared in The Atlantic, New York Times (Modern Love column), The New York Times Magazine, The Sun, Granta, and elsewhere. He’s also contributed feature articles to the Guardian, Writers’ Digest (three times), and elsewhere.

DANIELLE EVANS is the author of two short story collections, The Office of Historical Corrections and Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self. Her first collection won the PEN American Robert W. Bingham Prize, the Hurston-Wright award for fiction, and the Paterson Prize for fiction; her second won the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize and was a finalist for The Aspen Prize, The Story Prize, The Chautauqua Prize, and The Los Angeles Times Book prize for fiction. She has also been awarded The New Literary Project Oates Prize, a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, and a US Artists Fellowship. Her stories have appeared in magazines and anthologies including four editions of The Best American Short Stories. She is an Associate Professor in The Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University.

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