Troy
Sebastian / Nupqu ʔa·kǂ am̓
Troy Sebastian / Nupqu ʔa·kǂ am̓ is a Ktunaxa writer working in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and film. His writing has been published in The Walrus, The New Quarterly, Prairie Fire, and Ktuqckakyam. He is a recipient of the 2017 Hnatyshyn REVEAL Indigenous Arts Award and graduate of the Indigenous Writers Program at the Banff Centre. His story “Tax-Niʔ-Pik̓ak (A Long Time Ago),” was originally published in The Walrus, longlisted for the CBC Short Story Prize as well as the Journey Prize, and published in Best Canadian Stories 2019. He was recently nominated for two National Magazine Awards. Sebastian is a recent graduate of the University of Victoria’s MFA writing program and is completing his first novel. He was selected by Lynn Coady, a two-time finalist for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize.
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“Everything about the work of Troy Sebastian feels original. His unpredictable structure, his extraordinary characters, his way with a completely unanticipated metaphor. You get the sense of a writer burrowing deep inside his own experience, history, and culture, fitting together the discarded fragments and treasures he finds along the way, until he emerges with something familiar yet utterly fresh – utterly dazzling. Proficient in both fiction and nonfiction, Ktunaxa writer Troy Sebastian is working on his first novel, which promises, both in sensibility and subject matter, to be unlike anything readers have yet encountered.” —2020 Writers' Trust Rising Stars selector Lynn Coady