Richard T. Kelly is the author of four novels published by Faber: Crusaders (2008), The Possessions of Doctor Forrest (2011), The Knives (2016), and The Black Eden (2023). His varied non-fiction publications also include Alan Clarke (1998), Sean Penn: His Life and Times (2004), and Keegan & Dalglish (2017). Previously an editor for London publishers including Faber and Penguin Random House, he has also written scripts for stage and screen, has edited two anthologies of P.G. Wodehouse, and is a contributing editor to Critical Quarterly and a regular feature writer for Esquire magazine.

You can read reviews of The Black Eden from the Observer and The Big Issue, and listen to Richard discussing the novel on BBC Radio 4's Open Book here.

For the Faber site he wrote this illustrated Long Read about the inspiration of real landscapes upon The Black Eden’s settings, which you can read here.

Richard’s Academy classes put special emphasis on structuring and shaping a novel’s form, including the key choices of the point(s) of view from which it will be told and the voice(s) that will narrate – but not forgetting key issues of language and style, and the value to a story of dramatic conflict. In the classroom he favours a lively atmosphere of sincere and scrupulous discussion, based on each writer also paying careful attention to the specificities of what their classmates are trying to achieve: everyone in the room, tutor included, will learn from each other!