Joe Ponepinto

Thank you for visiting my site.

A little about me: My political/science fiction satire, Mr. Neutron, was published by 7.13 Books in spring 2018. Curtain Calls, a historical fiction that takes place at the start of World War I, was published in 2014. I was the founding co-Publisher and Fiction Editor of Tahoma Literary Review, a nationally-recognized literary journal that has had selections reproduced in Best American Poetry, Best American Essays, Best Small Fictions, Best Gay Fiction, and other notable anthologies. I was the winner of the Tiferet: Literature, Art & the Creative Spirit 2016 fiction contest, and have had stories published in Crab Orchard Review, Fugue, Lumina, 2 Bridges Review, and dozens of other literary journals in the U.S. and abroad. A New Yorker by birth, I’ve lived in many places around the country, and now reside in Washington State with my wife, Dona. I am an adjunct writing instructor at Seattle’s Hugo House and Tacoma Community College.

I’m also a new member of Seattle7Writers, a collective of Pacific Northwest authors whose mission is to foster and support a passion for the written word in our community and everywhere.

In addition to writing, I am available for developmental editing and manuscript assessment. See the Editing and Mentoring page for more info.

Reading Like a Writer
Hugo House, 6 Sessions. Writers are often advised to read as much as possible. This class takes the concept further to turn the reading process into a learning tool. Through readings, exercises, and discussion, students will learn to identify the techniques of accomplished writers, and how to apply them to their own work. Writing from several genres will be covered, including short stories, essays, and novel excerpts by writers dating from the early 20th century, with an emphasis on contemporary works.
This class will be offered Wednesdays from 5 to 7 pm, from January 16 to February 20, 2019. Registration opens Nov. 26. Sign up on the Hugo House website.

Mentoring and Editing
I have been mentoring writers and editing manuscripts for many years. I truly enjoy working with writers to help them discover their strengths and improve their weaknesses, and build their confidence through a deep understanding of what makes writing successful. If you have questions or would like to discuss a project, please use the Contact Page. I look forward to hearing from you.

Mr. Neutron is a hybrid of satire, literary, politics, with a touch of the speculative, and a heavy dose of humor. It debuted March 7, 2018 from 7.13 Books in Brooklyn, NYC.

My homemade trailer for Mr. Neutron, using Apple’s iMovie and Audacity (a sound editing app).

Read a sample chapter

What Writers Are Saying

Joe Ponepinto’s Mr. Neutron offers a hilarious and biting romp across the American political landscape.  Mr. Neutron is satire at its best: sharp, clever and unsettling. Ponepinto has penned the defining political comedy for our own tragicomic democracy.
–Jacob M. Appel, author of Millard Salter’s Last Day          

A terrifically inventive romp through the insanities of small town politics delivered in high-octane prose that manages to be both mordantly funny and deeply poignant at the same time. Pitch-perfect and written with a fantastical (in every sense of the word) nod to the golem myth, Frankenstein, and Jerzi Kosinki’s Being There, Mr. Neutron is profoundly relevant to our time. Smart, crackling with insight on every page, it is also compulsively readable. I could not put it down. 
–Joan Leegant, author of Wherever You Go and An Hour In Paradise

Inventive, trenchant, and laugh-out-loud funny, Mr. Neutron is reminiscent of The Broom of the System and A Confederacy of Dunces, yet Ponepinto’s voice is wholly original. With its unforgettable characters and its whip-smart political satire, this novel is the catharsis we need for the America we live in today.
–Kelly Davio, author of It’s Just Nerves

Mr. Neutron is pure fun, satire at its best, skewering American government, politics, and society with delicious humor and insight. This is a book you’ll press on your friends, a book full of quotable gems and characters you won’t soon forget.
–Kathy Anderson, author of Bull and Other Stories 

Just when you thought politics couldn’t get any stranger, Joe Ponepinto gives us this—a madcap, comedic tale of politics as usual—or unusual, rather. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll read, you’ll vote. And then you’ll read again.
–B.J. Hollars, author of Flock Together

No novel has made me laugh this much since Richard Russo’s Straight Man. Ponepinto has injected just enough of the irreal into his satire to match America’s current fever-dream politics.–Bruce Holland Rogers, author of Forty-nine: A Square of Stories, and two-time Nebula and World Fantasy Award winner

Surreal and unexpected, Mr. Neutron turns political satire into something haunting, strange and can’t-put-down compelling.
–Libby Cudmore, author The Big Rewind