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Tyler McAndrew

@tyler-m.bsky.social
1.3K followers 403 following 2.6K posts

fiction writer. debut book MY PRISONER & OTHER STORIES (mad creek books / OSU press) won the 2024 non/fiction award. tmcandrew.com

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Tyler McAndrew @tyler-m.bsky.social · 1h
not a blog, but i discover a lot of music these days through cruel noise, which is a "podcast" by a dude in pittsburgh that just plays music. it's all punk and hardcore. no downloads, but it's pretty much all stuff that you can find on bandcamp. cruelnoise.libsyn.com
cruelnoise.libsyn.com
CRUEL NOISE
Hardcore punk and generally freak flag wavings via Pittsburgh, PA. Now start your own band.
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Tyler McAndrew @tyler-m.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
gotta add a few of these to my list...
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Tyler McAndrew @tyler-m.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
an enormous praying mantis perched near a rusty bolt on the outside of a warehousethe front door of a house with a notice that the house has been condemned. on the notice, someone has scrawled the word "dingus."a creepy little doll standing in the window of a house.a rainbow arced over the southside of pittsburgh
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Tyler McAndrew @tyler-m.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
painting done by my 1-yr-old on a 6x6 canvas. lots of black that cuts angrily across the canvas in broad smears roughly the width of a fingertip. a particular set of smears that's just left of center resembles an anarchy symbol, two smears pointing up in a jagged spike with a third cutting across their middle. in the upper right portion of the canvas is a red blob with one black smear trailing southward that cuts it in half. beneath the chaos one can glimpse other colors—purple molding at the left side of the canvas, smears of blue like shadows moving through all of the black, and small bits of yellow that emerge like sunlight from the cracks.
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Tyler McAndrew @tyler-m.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
re-read julie orringer's story "pilgrims" the other day for one of my classes. what an absolute stunner.
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Mike Good @doogekim.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
I enjoyed talking about some of what makes @autumnhouse.org unique with Fred Shaw who did a great write-up on the Press for Pittsburgh Review of Books. pghrev.com/autumn-house... #literarypittsburgh #indiepress
pghrev.com
Autumn House Press Remains Indispensable - Pittsburgh Review of Books
PRoB media partner Autumn House Press will be hosting its first annual fall fundraiser "Tales and Tarot" at White Whale Bookstore on Friday October 9th, 2026
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Phil McAndrew @philmcandrew.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
HEY did you know that you get free shipping on @bookshop.org today? It's true. Fuck amazon, go buy some books.
bookshop.org
Phil McAndrew Bookshop
Phil McAndrew is an award-winning illustrator, a cartoonist, and a writer.
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Tyler McAndrew @tyler-m.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
also "a woman under the influence," which is insanely good and insanely depressing but you get like a 15 minute scene where peter falk brings all his construction worker buddies home for dinner and serves them spaghetti.
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Brett @wetleafbrett.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Dracula driving a big car
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Tyler McAndrew @tyler-m.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
i also haven't seen braveheart in like 25 years but i'm pretty sure the mcandrew guy doesn't even make an appearance, i think they just talk for a second about how the british dudes chopped his head off or something
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Tyler McAndrew @tyler-m.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
just got my contributor copies of this in the mail yesterday 😎
cover of the new issue of prairie schoonerpage 1 of 2 of my story. text reads:

Life in Reverse
(after Stephen Dixon’s “Wife in Reverse”)

Peter’s ashes are swept into a metal box and buried under a stone marked 34F-0951. A plastic bin containing his belongings is walked down to the furnace by CO. Feels like a fist clenched around his heart, Peter says. He hasn’t spoken to anyone in months, maybe years. Snowflakes twinkle outside the window. Hunchbacked now, hardly leaves his cell. Smells bad, barely eats, nest of beard covering his face. “Shut the fuck up,” CO yells. Peter wakes up screaming again. Father stands before him, arms extended as if welcoming a hug, a steaming gurgle of blood widening across the front of his sweater. Same dream every night. Has been for years now, decades. Someone whispers about demons infiltrating the cell block. The others have learned to keep their distance. Years turn into more years. A letter informs Peter that his mother has passed away. “Tough,” CO says. Peter’s hand aches when he lifts his plastic spoon—never healed properly. “I’m sorry,” Peter’s mother says into the telephone. She hardly recognizes him through the scuffed plastic window. “I don’t think I will ever be coming back here again.” She struggles to get a word in as Peter frantically explains the intricacies of the government’s plot to abduct men of a certain age and ethnic descent, install neuro-sensor chips in their brains, and manipulate them into carrying out sexual crimes. It’s been years, again. “This should take care of your hand,” the doctor says, and shakes two aspirin from the bottle. Peter blinks like a newborn in the fluorescents. Throat raw from screaming. The flushing toilet reminds Peter of his father. Someone whispers about power lines, blood transfusions. It takes three guards to finally drag Peter to solitary. His right hand fractured in the fight. Everyone fed up with him rambling and twitching and shouting at no one in particular. Peter wakes up screaming. The jackhammers pound through...
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Tyler McAndrew @tyler-m.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
i've been trying to exclusively read novels this year. it's been fine, but let's just say i am excited to get back to the good stuff (short story collections).
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Tyler McAndrew @tyler-m.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
good thing i'm a self-absorbed freakazoid who cannot resist the occasional temptation to google himself because otherwise i'd never have known about this nice little review of my book that came out a month ago in free state review. (warning, there are spoilers) freestatereview.com/2026/08/31/t...
excerpt from the review, which is by j.m.c. kane: "This is what the blurb copy and the early reception have not quite said about My Prisoner and Other Stories: McAndrew is a genuinely rangy writer, working across modes — restrained realism, dark comedy, social indictment, lyric compression — and the coherence of the collection is not tonal but moral. What holds these thirteen stories together is not the Rust Belt, not the prison system, not the thesis that kindness persists beneath adversity. It is the structural fact that in every story, there is a moment when the possible choice passes unmade, and what remains afterward is the knowledge that it was possible. Maria could have left Ania on the lawn. Wayne could have not gone back into the house. The narrator of “Shit Plate” could have stopped Mike from eating the plate. The narrator of “How I Came to See the World” could not have saved T-Bone, but he will spend the rest of his life recalibrating around that fact.

McAndrew does not moralize. He does not resolve. He places his characters at the edge of what they could have done and watches them live with what they did instead. In a debut collection, that discipline is not common. In any collection, it is not common enough."
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Tyler McAndrew @tyler-m.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
this is great stuff
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Tyler McAndrew @tyler-m.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
static.klipy.com
Woman Eating Grapes in Bathtub
Alt: Woman Eating Grapes in Bathtub
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Ryan Wilson @ryanwilson.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
How about those Pittsburgh Penguins
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Tyler McAndrew @tyler-m.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
good thing i'm a self-absorbed freakazoid who cannot resist the occasional temptation to google himself because otherwise i'd never have known about this nice little review of my book that came out a month ago in free state review. (warning, there are spoilers) freestatereview.com/2026/08/31/t...
excerpt from the review, which is by j.m.c. kane: "This is what the blurb copy and the early reception have not quite said about My Prisoner and Other Stories: McAndrew is a genuinely rangy writer, working across modes — restrained realism, dark comedy, social indictment, lyric compression — and the coherence of the collection is not tonal but moral. What holds these thirteen stories together is not the Rust Belt, not the prison system, not the thesis that kindness persists beneath adversity. It is the structural fact that in every story, there is a moment when the possible choice passes unmade, and what remains afterward is the knowledge that it was possible. Maria could have left Ania on the lawn. Wayne could have not gone back into the house. The narrator of “Shit Plate” could have stopped Mike from eating the plate. The narrator of “How I Came to See the World” could not have saved T-Bone, but he will spend the rest of his life recalibrating around that fact.

McAndrew does not moralize. He does not resolve. He places his characters at the edge of what they could have done and watches them live with what they did instead. In a debut collection, that discipline is not common. In any collection, it is not common enough."
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Jesse Marshall @jmarshpgh.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Only one way to kick this baby off
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Tyler McAndrew @tyler-m.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
leonard cohen - "dress rehearsal rag" youtu.be/1XXGWERfV7I?...
youtu.be
Leonard Cohen - Dress Rehearsal Rag (Official Audio)
YouTube video by LeonardCohenVEVO
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Tyler McAndrew @tyler-m.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
guys, i've got some major news:
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Tyler McAndrew @tyler-m.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
so much pro-AI discourse is like "employers are looking to hire people who are experts with AI." but then there's this broader idea that AI "democratizes" skills, makes you an expert in everything... like, "i need to become an expert in this thing that exists to destroy the very idea of expertise."
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Tyler McAndrew @tyler-m.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
mwahahahaha
flier for a hardcore punk show. freddie krueger peaks up from behind a box of text which reads:

a halloween flavored affair benefiting prevention point

PEACE TALKS
O.I.L.
GRASSKY KNOLL
HEAVY SMOKER

october 31 MMXXVI
live at prevention point
460 melwood ave, pgh, pa
7pm $10 all ages!
wear a costume or be doomed!
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Tyler McAndrew @tyler-m.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
i have a little flash fiction story in the new issue of prairie schooner! or, to put it another way: sandra cisneros and i have work in the same magazine!?!?!
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Tyler McAndrew @tyler-m.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
so far my crowning achievement as a parent is that my baby has known since she was maybe 8 or 10 months old that skeletons have high-pitched laughter
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NBC News @nbcnews.com · 17/09/2026
The new wild cat species is about the size of a domestic kitten and lives in Bolivia.
nbcnews.to
New wild cat species is identified for first time in 100 years, researchers say
A type of tiger cat, the animal is smaller than a house cat, slender and spotted. It lives in the Bolivian cloud forest.
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Tyler McAndrew @tyler-m.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
yeah dawg, "nitro" and "genocide" go hard as fuck
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Tyler McAndrew @tyler-m.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
i somehow never had to red her in high school....but was reading her in awe in my early 30s! the dixon homage is funny. i almost didn't want to send it out—it was just kind of a story i tinkered with when i was stuck on other stuff, my energy for it carried entirely by my love of the dixon story.
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Tyler McAndrew @tyler-m.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
i have a little flash fiction story in the new issue of prairie schooner! or, to put it another way: sandra cisneros and i have work in the same magazine!?!?!
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Tyler McAndrew @tyler-m.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
i feel like mingus is either gonna be DK or game and watch.
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Tyler McAndrew @tyler-m.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
appreciate the rec but man i gotta be honest, i'm almost definitely not going to watch it! the only tv i've watched in the past 2 or 3 years has been re-runs of the westminster dog show on youtube that i put on for the baby at night lol
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Tyler McAndrew @tyler-m.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
what is sisterwives did that win an emmy too
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Tyler McAndrew @tyler-m.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
my experience of emmy award-winning tv shows is probably similar to most other people's experience of short story collections in that i've never heard of any of them and don't know what they are.
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Tyler McAndrew @tyler-m.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
oh acrobatic tenement! i had no idea they ever reissued that!
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Tyler McAndrew @tyler-m.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
even that is brave, lol. i need to actually start using discogs so i can sell some of my stuff.
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Tyler McAndrew @tyler-m.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
brother i don't even know what that is lol
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Tyler McAndrew @tyler-m.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
first time in a month that i haven't had a bunch of grading or lesson planning to do during the weekend. spent some time goofing around with erasures.
an erasure poem made from a page of national geographic magazine. an illustration of a big parking lot with only 2 cars parked in it has been painted onto the page to cover up most of the worst. what's remaining forms the following:

we kept watching ourselves / all of us / we're doing it still, fostering / ghoulish / solipsism / go to work, and cough / we almost learned / this time"an erasure poem made from a page of national geographic magazine. an illustration of a bunch of stick figure people standing in a fenced in area with cars zooming past outside and an airplane flying overhead has been drawn onto the page. some of the text is highlighted to form the following poem:

the / days / wait / in a riot / and / disaster / has / become law.
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Tyler McAndrew @tyler-m.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
"the new jim crow: mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness," by michelle alexander
"the new jim crow: mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness," by michelle alexander
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Tyler McAndrew @tyler-m.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
i tried organizing by genre a year or two ago. i don't even have that many records but i quickly found the task to be impossible.
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Evening House Books @eveninghouse.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
If you’ve been interested in ordering books from us to support the shop but have struggled to use the website, it is currently running smoothly in a defensive mode protecting it from spam traffic overloading the servers Eveninghousebooks.com We’d love to connect you with great books
eveninghousebooks.com
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Tyler McAndrew @tyler-m.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
for what it's worth, i tried buying a book through the site a little bit ago, got a couple errors at checkout, tried again after creating an account, and then it worked fine?
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Phil McAndrew @philmcandrew.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Have you read the first issue of HERMIT MAGAZINE yet? (here's a free PDF download for you)
philmcandrew.itch.io
HERMIT MAGAZINE #1 by Phil McAndrew
Humor, art, comics, short fiction, interviews, strange and interesting articles, and more.
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Tyler McAndrew @tyler-m.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
@eveninghouse.bsky.social is like the best possible version of what and indie bookstore can be. help 'em out, folks!
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Tyler McAndrew @tyler-m.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
i've been curious about runyon!
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Tyler McAndrew @tyler-m.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
sometimes a story is perfectly competent but the voice just isn't there. sometimes a story is so voicey that it feels annoying and try-hard. sometimes a story is kind of otherwise unremarkable but the voice just hits and makes it work!
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Tyler McAndrew @tyler-m.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
it's also the thing that most often grabs me or makes me tap out when i'm reading student work or literary journal submissions. though again, i rarely can describe it in any concrete way.
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Tyler McAndrew @tyler-m.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
i think voice is probably what i'm most attuned to in my own writing, though i rarely think about it in any sort of concrete terms—it's always just a hazy intuition around rhythm and pacing and what to include/omit—so it's been fun and weird thinking about it in a more clinical way.
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Tyler McAndrew @tyler-m.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
errr 1st and 4th quotes
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Tyler McAndrew @tyler-m.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
been using the 1st and 3rd quotes as kind of my guide-rails for the whole unit: 1) voice as the most immediate, authoritative presence in a story, the first thing that the reader encounters, and 2) voice as the thing you, the writer, should trust when you get stuck.
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Tyler McAndrew @tyler-m.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
overhauled the first half of my intermediate fiction course this semester. decided to open with a unit on *voice*—something i've never tried teaching before. but it's going well and has me excited about both teaching and writing. here's the first page of a packet i made, with quotes on the topic.
VOICE IN FICTION



“When we read, voice is the most immediate and authoritative presence. When we write, intentionally or not, we make it so. It precedes character and setting and the images and ideas that will form the conceived reality of a fictional narrative.” 
(Chuck Wachtel, “Behind the Mask: Narrative Voice in Fiction”)




“Voice has become a catchall phrase; but by it I intend something very specific: a speaking voice, like the singing voice in music, that moves not across the page, but through time. Surely every written story is, in the final analysis, a score for voice.” 
(Margaret Atwood, introduction to The Best American Short Stories 1989)




“[Voice] is the struggle of birth, bringing from within to without; the full force of the writer’s desire to be heard intersects the passionate will of the character’s want of speech.” 
(Steven Schwartz, “Finding Voice in America”)




“Retrace your steps and return to the place where you last felt a pulse, where the language felt alive, and you felt engaged. If that’s not your ending, it will at least point you true north.” 
(Elissa Schappell, “Endings: Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow”)
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Tyler McAndrew @tyler-m.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
submitting stuff to journals for the first time in a few years and it is very cool how many of places are now banning AI-generated work
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