Aryn Kyle

Aryn Kyle, born January 22, 1978, is an American novelist and short story writer whose career came into public view in the early 2000s. She was born in Peoria, Illinois, and grew up in Grand Junction, Colorado, a place that would later appear in altered form in her fiction. Her work has moved between literary magazines, anthologies, a bestselling novel, and a short story collection, giving readers a clear sense of a writer shaped by close attention to place, youth, and the pressures of family life.

Kyle graduated from Colorado State University in 2001 and received an MFA in fiction from the University of Montana in 2003. Those years came just before her first major publication. Her first short story, “Foaling Season,” appeared in The Atlantic Monthly and won a 2004 National Magazine Award in fiction. The story did not remain a standalone success. It became the first chapter of her debut novel, The God of Animals, published by Scribner in March 2007.

The God of Animals became a national bestseller. The novel tells the story of Alice Winston, a young girl coming of age on her family’s rundown horse ranch. It is set in the fictional town of Desert Valley, which Kyle based on Grand Junction, Colorado. That connection between invented town and real upbringing gives the book one of its defining anchors. The novel was named by Amazon.com as the Number One Fiction Debut of 2007, and it went on to win an Alex Award and a Spur Award for Best Novel of the West.

Kyle’s short fiction has appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, Ploughshares, The Georgia Review, The Alaska Quarterly Review, StoryQuarterly, and the anthologies Best New American Voices 2005 and Best American Short Stories 2007. Her listed short stories include “Copper Queen,” “Nine,” “Foaling Season,” “Femme,” “Allegiance,” “Brides,” “The Company of Strangers,” “Little Deaths,” and “Employee/Manager Relations.” In spring 2010, Scribner released her short story collection, Boys and Girls Like You and Me.

Her awards include the Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award in 2005, the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award in 2008, the Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association Award in 2008, the American Library Association Alex Award in 2008, and the Spur Award for Best Novel of the West in 2008, along with National Magazine Award recognition in 2004 and 2022. For readers drawn to quotations, Kyle’s line, “Don’t wait for the perfect moment; take the moment and make it perfect,” fits naturally beside a body of work that began with a single story and grew into a widely read novel.