Peter Mountford (born July 17, 1976) is an American novelist and writer of short stories and non-fiction.

Biography

A former adjunct scholar of the

Alexis de Tocqueville Institution The Alexis de Tocqueville Institution (AdTI) was a Washington, D.C.–based think tank. AdTI was named after the French historian Alexis de Tocqueville. Founded in 1988, its president was Ken Brown and its chairman was Gregory Fossedal. At it ...

, Mountford received an MFA in fiction in 2006 from the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW and informally U-Dub or U Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, the University of Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast of the Uni ...

, where he won the David Guterson Prize for a thesis. He was a 2012–14 writer-in-residence for the

Richard Hugo House Hugo House is a non-profit community writing center in Seattle, Washington. About Hugo House was founded in 1997 by Linda Jaech, Frances McCue, and Andrea Lewis. These three writers believed Seattle needed a center for local writers and reade ...

Published work

Mountford's first novel, ''A Young Man's Guide to Late Capitalism'', was published by

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Company ( ; HMH) is an American publisher of textbooks, instructional technology materials, assessments, and reference works. The company is based in the Financial District, Boston, Boston Financial District. It was fo ...

in April 2011. The novel won the 2012

Washington State Book Award The Washington State Book Awards is a literary awards program presented annually in recognition of notable books written by Washington authors in the previous year. The program was established in 1967 as the Governor's Writers Awards. Each year, u ...

in fiction and was a finalist for the 2012 VCU Cabell First Novelist Award. Set in Bolivia and inspired by the author's experiences in Ecuador working at the Tocqueville Institution, it describes the interplay and conflict between the interests of Bolivia and the goals of international financiers. The author discovered that the book was being translated into Russian for a pirate publisher. His second novel, ''The Dismal Science'', was released in February 2014 by Tin House Books. Mountford's short fiction and essays have appeared in ''

The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher based in Washington, D.C. It features articles on politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 185 ...

'', ''Boston Review'', ''Best New American Voices 2008'', ''Granta'', ''Michigan Quarterly Review'', ''Salon'', ''Seattle Review'', and '' Conjunctions''.

Works

Novels

* '' A Young Man's Guide to Late Capitalism'' (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011) * ''The Dismal Science'' (Tin House, 2014)

Short fiction

* ''Impact Play,'' ''Kink - Stories'' (Simon & Schuster, 2021) * ''Two Sisters'', in the Fall 2010 issue of ''Phoebe: A Journal of Literature and Art'' * ''Mr. McNamara's Suit'', in the Spring 2010 issue of ''Seattle Review'' * ''A Room on the Eighth Floor,'' ''Conjunctions'', Fall 2008 * ''Horizon,'' Best New American Voices 2008 and ''Michigan Quarterly Review''. * ''Barbarians' Fantasies,'' ''Boston Review'', March/April 2007

References

External links

Author's Website

Mountford essay describing the origin of ''A Young Man’s Guide to Late Capitalism''

Mountford essay on Salon.com

NPR review and excerpt from ''A Young Man’s Guide to Late Capitalism''

Appearance on WNYC’s Leonard Lopate Show
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mountford, Peter 1976 births Living people American fiction writers