Episode 27: Kyle Beachy

By Christopher Hudgens

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Kyle Beachy’s first novel, The Slide, won the Chicago Reader’s 2009 “Readers’ Choice” award for Best Book by a Chicago Author in the Last Year. The Boston Globe called the novel, “an unusual, and unusually good coming-of-age-story,” and Publishers Weekly described it as, “At once hilarious, strange, and uncomfortable.” His short fiction and essays appear in Knee-Jerk, Hobart, decomP, as a Featherproof MiniBook, and elsewhere. He has lived in Chicago since coming for The School of the Art Institute’s MFA program in 2003, and he currently teaches literature and writing at SAIC, Roosevelt University, and the Graham School of The University of Chicago.

Here, Kyle reads selections from and answers questions about The Most Fun Thing, his upcoming novel about skateboarding, celebrity, bones, and the joys of failure.