We're pleased to announce that this weekend Tyler will be returning to Hay-on-Wye for the Hay Festival Winter Weekend, where he's been asked to do an event with Penny Thomas and Francesca Rhydderch. Penny is the editor of Seren books, publisher of Francesca's exquisite debut novel, The Rice Paper Diaries, which picked up the Wales Book of the Year English-language fiction prize, in the year The Drive was nominated. Fran and Penny also co-edited Seren's anthology, New Welsh Short Stories, in which Tyler's story, 'Night Start,' appeared. Appropriately, their event title is based around that same theme, so the trio will be discussing the short story form in general and its modern iterations in Wales and beyond. Tickets are selling quickly but you can still pick them up for a fiver on the Hay Winter Weekend website. The event starts at 11.30 am in The Swan drawing room on Sunday the 29th. Hope to catch you there.
This one is for Tyler's fans back home in Canada (you know who you are...even if he doesn't). We at his publicity team have just had word that all three of his award-winning books are on sale as part of Kobo's Cyber Monday sale, which runs this weekend till November 30th. So if you don't have them already, you can get the e-books of Burrard Inlet, Fireball, and The Drive at a discount rate. We're not sure if this is part of the ominously named 'Black Friday' sales (which has vague echoes of the traumatic 1974 Christmas horror, Black Christmas, which interestingly enough, is also Canadian) but either way we're all for it: so get ready to fight your way to the front of the electronic lines before this deal expires. Did we mention that each of these books is an award-winner? There, Tyler. We actually bigged you up for a change. (Tyler has been complaining that his publicity staff spend more time taking the mickey out of him than supporting him...which is true - but it's just too easy, and too much fun!)
http://cfccreates.com/what_we_do/cfc_film/short_dramatic_film_program/2012_cfc_shorts/frost.php FROST tells the story of Naya, a young arctic hunter who longs for her father's recognition as a capable disciple. When a season of scarcity threatens their family, she embarks on a perilous search for food beyond the perimeter of their ancestral hunting grounds.
Things have been quiet on the publicity front while Tyler works on his stories with the help of a Literature Wales bursary. So it was nice for us at his publicity team to get a phone call the other day to confirm finalization of a deal that has long been in the works: Tyler's short story, 'The Herd,' has been optioned for adaptation into a feature film, by director Jeremy Ball. Jeremy comes from a visual effects background: he's worked on Zhang Yimou's Flowers of War, Jackie Chan's Forbidden Kingdom, and the Twilight Saga: Eclipse, among others. Recently his short film, 'Frost,' debuted at TIFF and picked up the Grand Jury Award for Best Canadian Short at the Edmonton International Film Festival. 'Frost' is set in a post-apocalyptic Arctic landscape and explores Inuit culture; those familiar with 'The Herd' can see why this is the perfect match: Tyler's story is set in Northern Canada, and offers a new take on the zombie genre, by blending it with the Wendigo myth. The original story was published in the Exile Editions anthology, Dead North.
