Burrard Inlet

Winner of the Writers' Trust of Canada Journey Prize Winner of the Independent Publisher Book Awards Silver Medal Shortlisted for Wales Book of the Year Longlisted for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award Longlisted for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize Burrard Inlet is the body of water that divides Vancouver's North Shore from the rest of the Lower Mainland. In this collection of award-winning stories, Tyler Keevil uses that rugged landscape as a backdrop for characters who are struggling against the elements, each other, and themselves. A search-and-rescue volunteer looks for a missing snowboarder on Christmas Eve; two brothers retreat to the woods to shoot a film in memory of their dead friend; a reclusive forestry worker picks up a hitcher on his way down Mount Seymour; a young man finds a temporary haven on the ice barge where he works. Written in a lean, muscular style, these are stories awash in blood and brine, and steeped in images of freedom and confinement. Within that narrative framework, Burrard Inlet becomes more than a geographical location: it is a liminal space, a boundary and a barrier, a threshold to be crossed.

Tyler Keevil grew up in Vancouver, Canada, and in his mid-twenties moved to Wales, where he now lives. His short fiction has appeared in a wide range of magazines and anthologies and has also won several awards, most notably the Writers' Trust of Canada Journey Prize. His first two novels, Fireball and The Drive, were both nominated for the Wales Book of the Year and both received the Wales Book of the Year People's Prize. He has worked as a tree planter and ice barge deckhand, as well as in factories, restaurants, video stores, and shipyards; he currently lectures in Creative Writing at the University of Gloucestershire.