Kyle Beachy is a writer, teacher, friend to many dogs, and skateboarder who told The Short Form that he began studying philosophy and English, but started writing fiction to move into more “different and compelling mysteries than my own. Because,” Beachy said, “after all, a mystery doesn’t have to be solved for it to become boring.”

A graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and current assistant professor at Roosevelt University, Beachy’s first book is The Slide, a novel about home set in St. Louis. He has also published short stories, philosophical treatises, and elegantly complicated sentences, and he often performs or collaborates with local writers Kristin Lueke, Dave Snyder, and Chris Bower. “My project is never to ‘fictionalize’ beliefs into stories,” Beachy also told The Short Form. “I am a person who believes things and also regularly discovers that I believe new things, often to my own surprise.”