Gerard McKeown - Published Writing

My website can be found at www.gerardmckeown.co.uk. 

Links to other work can be found below: Never Wases Anonymous - The London Magazine

The Quizmasters - The Best Horror of the Year, Volume Fourteen (edited by Ellen Datlow)

Every Ballymena Man's Dream - BBC Radio 4 (produced by Michael Shannon, read by Seamus O'Hara)

A History of Fire - Willesden Herald New Short Stories 10

The Shared Bedroom - Number Eleven

Detachment - Still Worlds Turning (edited by Emma Warnock) No Alibis Press

The Blue Hour – Litro

The Company of Moths - The Milkhouse

Dunvale – The Moth

Cullybackey Train Station – The Honest Ulsterman

Sister Sarya at The End of The World – The Mechanics’ Institute Review

The Quizmasters - The Black Dreams (edited by Reggie Chamberlain-King) Blackstaff Press

Roll Again - Hipflask

Almost Strangers - Open Pen

The Last Meal of the Condemned – Litro

Other People's Phone Calls - Headstuff

The Drowning - Fictive Dream

Drowning A Mermaid - Splonk

Silent Misery - Same Same But Different (edited by Mikka Haugaard) Everything With Words 

Stroked on Dope - The Honest Ulsterman

Rabbit Season - Willesden Herald New Short Stories 11

The Poetry of Jenny - Liars League (performed by Zach Harrison)

How Do You Make Lady Gaga Cry? – Jellyfish Review

The Stink and The Shame – Litro

Burrito and Kate – 3:AM Magazine

The Burnt Moth - Spelk

Browsing Through CDs at the Supermarket - The Honest Ulsterman

The Company of Moths - Open Pen

Second Skin - The Drabble

Hollow Earth Theory - The Bohemyth

The Dancers at Blackpool Tower - Fictive Dream

Blue Smoke - Visual Verse

Kidsgrove – Litro

On The Beach - The Drabble

The Comedian – The Honest Ulsterman

A Mouthful of Wasps – VisualVerse

After The Parade – Neon

Mice, Monkeys, Cats, Cows, and Frogs – The Honest Ulsterman

Good King Bumfluff – The Incubator

A Visitor – VisualVerse

New Website

I've a new website showcasing my writing and teaching. You can find it here: http://www.gerardmckeown.co.uk.

Also check here for what I still think is the funniest blog on the internet.

The Donkey Punch

I'm back again, within the space of a week. Don't get your hopes up, unless something else happens I want to comment about. I put a video up on youtube this week for my poem The Donkey Punch. I think the visuals compliment it rather than explain it. I always saw it as a companion piece to another poem of mine Farmer (see elsewhere in blog for this).

Hope you enjoy it.

Wordlegs

I know I've pretty much abandoned this blog but I'm stopping by briefly to tell you to check out the latest issue of Wordlegs, because I have a story in it. Check it out here.

The Adventures of Boring Tom - Part 5

One day Boring Tom called the cops on his illegally parked neighbour.

The cops came and clamped the car.

Later that night someone broke Boring Tom's windows, and he didn't know why.

Boring Tom Stories by Gerard McKeown and Ryan O'Neill.

Farmer

My birthday was last week and my lovely girlfriend took me for the weekend to a lovely wee cottage in the Sperrin Mountains.

The Sperrins isn't a place I know too well so while there aside from all the partying and setting trends that we do we went for a cool walk. I had my video camera with me and Kristiina decided to shoot some footage for a video I wanted to make of my poem Farmer.

Farmer is (in my opinion) one of my best poems. It's different from the sort of stuff I'm known for but I wrote it when I was 21 and living in Carlisle, long before I'd ever heard of performance poetry or page poetry (nonesense terms used for sneering and boxing people in). It was also one of the first poems I had published (Fire no.26) and for that reason I'll always be very fond of it.

Here's the video:

The Adventures of Boring Tom - Part 4

One day Boring Tom found a penny on the ground

"Hey! I've just found a penny!" he shouted, as he picked it up.
"So what?" said some passers by. "You can't buy anything for a penny."
"I collect pennies and keep them in a jar at home," said Boring Tom.

The kids walked away laughing.
"We'll see who's laughing when I've saved up a pound!" said Boring Tom happily to himself.

Words by Gerard McKeown Art by Ryan O'Neill.

The Adventures of Boring Tom - Part Three

One day Boring Tom was at the bus stop.

"Does this bus go to Lurgan?" Boring Tom asked.
"No," said the person at the bus stop.

"Good," said Boring Tom. "I don't want to go to Lurgan. Too many "wild boys" there".

Using his fingers hadn't produced the reaction he'd hoped for, but he wouldn't give up hope. Someday someone would get it.

Boring Tom by Gerard McKeown (words) and Ryan O'Neill (art)

Six Degrees of Gerard McKeown

I was out at the cinema the other night with my girlfriend watching Last Chance Harvey (the new Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson film, pretty good so it is) and it occured to me for the first time in the past two years (the time since it came to be) that I actually have six degrees of Kevin Bacon.

See two years ago I was in a UTV production called Agnes Jones which starred Bronagh Gallagher. Here it is. I come in around the 4:45 mark. Blink and you'll miss me (but you can also bite me).

Bronagh Gallagher was in Pulp Fiction with John Travolta

John Travolta was in the remake of Hairspray with Michelle Pfeiffer

Michelle Pfeiffer was in Scarface with Al Pacino

Al Pacino is in Heat with Robert DeNiro

Robert De Niro is in Sleepers with Kevin Bacon.

Anyone who wants to bite me, please do.