Author Bio

Keynsian [Kayn-zee-an] Houston, who often goes by “Keyna” [Kay-na], is an author, artist, and educator, among other things — collectively, a Creative. She graduated from UNC-Greensboro with a triple major in English Education, Spanish, and Music, and she holds an MA in English from the University of Vermont.

For the last 26 years, she has chosen to express her creativity in a high school English classroom. Her work has received mixed reviews from her target audience, and she frequently has to remind herself that they lack fully-developed frontal lobes. During this time, she has also been a writer of both fiction and nonfiction.

Originally from the East Coast (“she’s so ‘East Coast'”), Keynsian and her husband, Jeremy, moved from Vermont to Washington (state) in 2014, and they haven’t left yet. They live comfortably and quietly in Tacoma, with their trusty companion, Canyon, a Belgian-Shepherd-Husky mix who just turned 2 and acts much like Keyna’s teenage students. Jeremy works in HR but aspires to be a stay-at-home dog dad. They really don’t mind the rain, which is not as bad as you think, and they feel it’s way better than 8 months of snow, ice, and sub-zero temperatures.

Frequently, you can find Keyna sitting in a comfy chair in Barnes & Noble or the local bookstore, with a stack of to-be-read on the side table next to her and a Venti Blonde Flat White with 6 Splendas in her hand. Hours later, you can find her in the same place. Maybe even days later. Alternately, she might be in any number of coffee shops in pretty much the same scenario. Sometimes she writes instead of reading.

Keyna has been a writer all her life. Admittedly, her early works, from ages 5-7, probably wouldn’t have much of an audience, since they largely consist of lists of the names of people she knew at the time. Jury’s still out on her collection of short stories, The Adventures of Rocco, pulled from journals of ages 8-10. She is confident, though, that no one needs to see her adolescent poetry anthology, Poetry to Live By.

Recently, Keynsian finished her first full-length novel, Landsharks, a contemporary, young-adult, coming-of-age story about a sarcastic, irreverent 17-year-old girl, who makes it her mission to “fix” an old friend’s unfortunate life. Keyna is currently revising Landsharks and will then seek an agent. Many of her bookstore and coffee-shop adventures are dedicated to this purpose. She also enjoys eavesdropping on strangers’ conversations during Writer’s Block, and she cannot promise you that your words won’t end up in her dialogue somewhere.