Kevin Brockmeier


Kevin John Brockmeier is an American writer of fantasy and literary fiction. His best known work is the 2006 novel The Brief History of the Dead.

Life and career

Brockmeier was born in Hialeah, Florida, and raised in Little Rock, Arkansas. He is a graduate of Parkview Arts and Science Magnet High School and Southwest Missouri State University. He taught at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where he received his MFA in 1997, and lives in Little Rock.
His short stories have been printed in numerous publications and he has published two collections of stories, two children's novels, and two fantasy novels.
Brockmeier has won three O. Henry Prizes, the Chicago Tribune's Nelson Algren Award for Short Fiction, Italo Calvino Short Fiction Award, the Booker Worthen Literary Prize, and the Porter Fund Literary Prize.

Published works

Story collections

  • Things That Fall from the Sky
  • The View From The Seventh Layer
  • ''The Ghost Variations''

    Novels

  • The Truth About Celia
  • The Brief History of the Dead
  • ''The Illumination''

    Memoir

  • ''A Few Seconds of Radiant Filmstrip: A Memoir of Seventh Grade''

    For younger readers

  • City of Names
  • ''Grooves: A Kind of Mystery''

    Miscellaneous stories

  • "The Brief History of the Dead"
For more information on individual stories, see ''Things That Fall from the Sky''

Anthologies as Editor

  • Real Unreal: Best American Fantasy 3, edited by Kevin Brockmeier.

    Awards and honors

  • O. Henry Award
  • Nelson Algren Award
  • Italo Calvino Short Fiction Award
  • James Michener–Paul Engle Fellowship
  • National Endowment for the Arts grant recipient