M. J. Hyland


Maria Joan Hyland is an ex-lawyer and the author of three novels: How the Light Gets In, Carry Me Down and This is How. Hyland is a lecturer in creative writing in the Centre for New Writing at the University of Manchester. Carry Me Down was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and won the Hawthornden Prize and the Encore Prize.
Hyland has twice been longlisted for the Orange Prize, the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and This is How was longlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.
At the University of Manchester she has run fiction workshops alongside Martin Amis, Colm Tóibín and Jeanette Winterson. Hyland runs regular in the Guardian Masterclass Programme, has twice been shortlisted for the BBC Short Story Prize and she publishes in The Guardian How to Write series and the Financial Times, the LRB, Granta and elsewhere.

Writing and prizes

Carry Me Down was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and won both the Hawthornden Prize and The Encore Prize and all three novels have been longlisted and short-listed for several prizes: the Orange Prize. Carry Me Down has been listed as one of the Top 100 ‘Australian’ Novels of all time by the Society of Authors.
How the Light Gets In and Carry Me Down were shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and This is How was longlisted for the Dublin International IMPAC Prize and The Orange Prize. Hyland's short story "Even Pretty Eyes Commit Crimes", which was shortlisted for the BBC International Short Story Prize and first published online by Granta, is story of the week in , US.

Short stories

Hyland's short stories have been published in many places, including , Blackbook Magazine, Best Australian Short Stories and, in September 2011, her short story "Rag Love" was shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award. Hyland's "Even Pretty Eyes Commit Crimes" has been published in the anthology Best British Short Stories. Boyd Tonkin from the The Independent said of the anthology: "Nicholas Royale has excellent taste, ensuring little explosions of weirdness or transcendence often erupt amid much well-observed everyday life."

Teaching and editing

Hyland runs regular in the Guardian Masterclass Programme, has twice been shortlisted for the BBC Short Story Prize and regularly publishes non-fiction in The Guardian, the Financial Times, the London Review of Books, Lonely Planet, Granta, the Scottish Herald, and elsewhere. Hyland teaches three fiction courses in 2014 in the . Her advice on proof-reading has been cited in The New Scientist.

Public readings and events

Hyland has made more than two dozen appearances on national and international radio, including RTÉ, PBS, Radio 4 and The BBC World Service, Radio 3, The ABC and has been a guest of nine major literary festivals, including the Edinburgh International Festival and Hay-On-Wye.
Hyland has also been appointed writer-in-residence in programmes such as Arizona State University's Workshop Programme & writer-in-residence at Griffith University, Australia, and has appeared at the Melbourne Writers' Festival, Crossing Borders, the Netherlands, Segovia, Rome, the Brisbane Writers' Festival. The most comprehensive interview to date can be read in the US-based

Multimedia

In 2008, Hyland was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, a debilitating neurological disease.

Awards

How the Light Gets In
Carry Me Down
This Is How
Short fiction:
Essays

''How the Light Gets In''