Peter Putnam is a writer and writing teacher who has lived in Detroit for more than thirty-five years. He came to the city by way of Amherst College and the University of Michigan, expecting one kind of life, and found another — richer, more complicated, and more honest than anything he'd anticipated. Detroit has shaped him in ways he didn't see coming, and he has tried to be worthy of that education.

For over twenty-five years, Putnam taught more than three thousand community college students that writing is one way to tell their story. That conviction — that ordinary lives deserve language — runs through everything he writes.

His debut novel, Pink JeZus in the "D", is set in Detroit during Holy Week 2010 and follows sixteen-year-old Anthony Lincoln through one transformative week in which a pair of pink plastic glasses found on Belle Isle begins to reveal the world — and himself — in ways he never expected. At his side is Perry, his best friend and comedic confidante, whose punchlines carry a raw wisdom all their own. Together they make their way through a story that is as funny as it is searching — a book about growing up, growing inward, and daring to question everything, including the holiest things of all. Putnam is also the author of two works of nonfiction: The Song of Father-Son: Men in Search of the Blessing (iUniverse, 2006), which found an appreciative audience in the men's community, and Talkin' Bout A Revolution: Growing Our Souls in the Time of Trump (2024), which earned him a reading in the Detroit Public Library Authors Series and appearances on three radio programs, including Detroit's NPR affiliate.

Peter lives in Detroit with his wife, a lifelong Detroiter who founded the James and Grace Lee Boggs School in the city. When he needs to center himself, he circles Belle Isle — Detroit's island in the river — and looks across the water toward Canada.