Tyler Keevil is an award-winning author from Vancouver, Canada. He writes novels, short stories, creative non-fiction, and screenplays. Keevil has received numerous awards for his writing, notably the Missouri Review’s Jeffrey E. Smith Editors’ Prize, the Wales Book of the Year People’s Prize, and the McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize.
Tyler Keevil grew up in Vancouver and moved to Wales in his twenties. His academic journey involved studying English and Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia, where an exchange program brought him to Lancaster University.
Upon graduating, Tyler Keevil lived in Prague before returning to the UK and settling in Mid Wales. As a writer with diverse experience, he has worked with the theatre education company Theatr Powys and contributed to various magazines. His stories have graced publications like Brace, Interzone, New Welsh Review, and PRISM: International.
Beyond his literary endeavours, Tyler has traversed an eclectic array of jobs in Canada and the UK, including tree-planting in northern BC, being a deckhand on an ice barge, and roles in shipyards, factories, bakeries, restaurants, and video stores. These varied experiences serve as rich fodder for his short fiction.
Currently, Tyler Keevil serves as a Lecturer in English Literature and Creative Writing at Cardiff University. His teaching responsibilities include courses on Creative Reading & Creative Writing, Screenwriting, and the Year 3 Creative Writing Project at the undergraduate level.
At the MA level, he contributes to The Writers’ Workshop and The Creative Writing Portfolio. Tyler also supervises postgraduate research students, with research interests spanning road stories in fiction and film, Bildungsroman and coming-of-age stories, and Canadian short fiction.
In 2010, Parthian Books published his debut novel, Fireball, which earned a spot on the Wales Book of the Year longlist and secured the Book of the Year People's Prize in 2011.
His subsequent novel, The Drive, a captivating road trip adventure set in the Pacific Northwest, was published by Myriad Editions in 2013. As an editor's pick at Litro and Waterstones, The Drive was also shortlisted for the Wales Book of the Year and the People's Choice Award.
In 2014, Tyler Keevil published his first short fiction collection, Burrard Inlet. The collection received numerous award nominations, and one of its stories, Sealskin, clinched the $10,000 Writers Trust of Canada / McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize. In 2018, The Borough Press released his latest novel, No Good Brother.
Tyler Keevil lives with his family in Abergavenny, South Wales.
Photo credit: www.tylerkeevil.com