A Bag Full of Interviews

HERE are the URLs for the three-part
interview by Vanessa Gebbie

Vanessa Gebbie-1

Vanessa Gebbie-2

Vanessa Gebbie-3

Internet Writers Journal

London Party & One Book Launch: Ballistics

Ballistics







BALLISTICS!


Early evening, starting about 6PM in Central London,
near an easy-access tube-station.

VENUE WILL BE CONFIRMED AS SOON AS
WE HAVE A BETTER IDEA OF NUMBERS

The date is Wednesday 14th January.



Please reply asap. Also, if by any chance you are thinking of buying more than one copy
of Ballistics, please let me know, so I can make sure we have enough copies!

CONFIRMED


01 Alex
02 Nancy
03 Dan
04 Lexie
05 Caroline D
06 Debbie
07 Bridie
08 P-J
09 Jo M
10 Adam Pearson
11 Katie Langdon
12 Clare Temperley
13 THE MAN
14 Cally Taylor
15 Ants Davies
16 Cedric, hopefully
17 Chrissie, maybe

I'D PARTICULARLY LOVE TO MEET UP WITH OLD BOOT-CAMPERS,
CURRENT BCERS, THOSE I'VE CYBER-MET ON WD-TLC

Absolutely anyone from WD is welcome,
but PLEASE contact me beforehand so
I can ensure we have room!


IF I HAVE MISSED ANYONE, PLEASE SHOUT, AS I'M GOING DEAF....


PS If I owe anybody money the meeting is in Aberdeen


PLEASE reply asap so I can book etc.

Comments on Alex Keegan's Short-Stories

Ballistics








Alex Keegan is absolutely the best short-story writer I've read! His stories are wonderful; wrenching, hilarious, sexy - with a depth of emotion and beauty of language that makes them unique!







DIANA GABALDON
New York Times Top Ten Author
The Outlander Series &
The Lord John Series



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diana_Gabaldon

http://www.its.caltech.edu/~gatti/gabaldon/gabaldon.html

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=DrqwlJa0E24

Vanessa Gebbie Interview

The third part of VG's interview went up yesterday



CLICK HERE






I'd like to thank Vanessa again for her hard work, for fielding some hecklers, and for making me think.

I'm particularly grateful she didn't "smooth-out" the interview.


Tidied interviews are a little bit false.


Alex

Reviews of Earler Writing: RAZORBILL, A WILD JUSTICE

RAZORBILL

A novel with terrific energy and madly stylish!

Keegan writes with an unusual sensuality and his prose reads like a broken bottle of whisky in the sun, strong, glittering, with dark edges.


DIANA GABALDON New York Times Top Ten Author of the Outlander and Lord John series.








A WILD JUSTICE



A Wild Justice, by Alex Keegan



This is the fifth novel by Keegan in the Caz Flood series of crime thrillers. Caz Flood is a British cop/ investigator put on the case to solve a rather grisly murder. The corpse is horrifically mutilated and Keegan gives the reader a rather graphic description of the remains which causes some of the policemen at the scene to lose the contents of their stomachs. There is no obvious motive for this murder and the corpse is unknown with no available history to help solve the case. Only when a second body turns up, only slightly less mutilated, do the connections start to be made.

Flood then feels that the case may be too much for her and moves over to the child protection department to get involved in a case of child abuse and a possible paedophile ring. The literature on child abuse and paedophilia Flood is given to read is reproduced in the novel and harrowing to say the least. It all starts with a young boy, who attends a local nursery, who says he is being abused by his 'second daddy'. It comes to light that two brothers are actually setting up the nurseries in order to gain easy access to children and involving them in pornography of all kinds.

So, how do the two stories fit together? That would be telling. Keegan entwines the stories beautifully to produce a well crafted thriller. Caz Flood is an extremely likeable character and when she is investigating the crimes you wonder how someone could be so lucky not to get caught out. The thing is, you want her to be lucky. The novel also raises interesting ethical questions - who has the right to say who should die? If someone commits a crime that is so abominable and is then murdered, do you really want to rush to catch that persons killer? The answers are not given, but the book is a great read and does make you think long after you've put it down.

Reviews of Earlier Writing: KINGFISHER

Kingfisher

Vulture and Kingfisher are the latest adventures of Brighton DC and top-class runner Caz Flood who is surely one of the best female characters to be penned by a male writer.

Vulture sees Caz investigating a series of sexual assaults on female athletes while Kingfisher is focussed on the mysterious disappearance and reappearance of another female runner.

Keegan is an excellent writer and, as a top-thirty veteran runner, he obviously knows the athletics business and can make it interesting even to those who get puffed taking the dog for a walk.

Plots and sub-plots are excellently paced. After Kingfisher, the bridges of Brighton will never appear the same. However, a word of caution. These two titles are best appreciated if you have first read Cuckoo, Caz’s first adventure, which sets the scene for much of what happens thereafter.

This is a series I can see TV producers fighting for.

SHOTS in the DARK (Crime Magazine)




Keegan neatly weaves together his themes of sexual harassment, the ‘no means no’ debate and the ambiguous area surrounding accusations of date-rape. As a male author, he was stepping into a minefield here, but he seems to have pulled it off, producing a thoroughly entertaining crime novel well worth a second reading for its deeper comments on the (sex) games people play.

The Hype Report




Keegan writes with wit and energy; Caz is a lively, sympathetic and believable character. It all adds up to an exceedingly good detective story.

London Evening Standard




The final act is violently successful with a well-managed twist in the tail. Keegan still rates as one of the brightest recent recruits to crime fiction.


Birmingham Mail




One notch in realism above the average female investigator

Time Out



Caz Flood is the liveliest new detective to have appeared for years.

Birmingham Mail

Reviews of Earler Writing: VULTURE

VULTURE!


Lots of energy on display. Most skilfully packaged ..... deserving of applause...

Literary Review Feb 95



Alex Keegan has got better! A thoroughly entertaining crime novel well worth a second read for its deeper comments on the (sex) games people play.

The Hype Report Feb 95



This is a very readable book, a book to relax with.
Isn’t that what reading is all about?

Southern Echo 27 Jan

Reviews of Earlier Writing: CUCKOO

of Cuckoo

Altogether, she is the liveliest new detective to have appeared for years.

A striking success for a first novel.

Birmingham Post





I enjoyed Cuckoo from cover to cover; a crisp and modern novel; a superb and well-rounded heroine for the 1990's. I look forward immensely to Alex Keegan's next novel.

Terence Strong: Author of Whisper Who Dares and nine other best-selling thrillers.




One of the freshest murder mysteries I have read for some time.

South Wales Evening Post




One of Keegan’s strengths is the ability to push the plot rapidly forward, while Caz, the police and the reader are busy pursuing dead ends, cold clues, and mistaken avenues of enquiry. He knows how real detection and good novels often work in oblique ways, through detours that contribute nothing to the final destination but are essential for the journey.

The real achievement of the novel is to create, within pages, a whole world - Caz herself, the atmospheric John Street nick and its plausible cast of coppers. A firm favourite for me was Tom MacInnes, the older and wiser DI, nursing a drink and possibly a terminal illness, watching over the morning of Caz’s career from the evening of his own. The tired old cop and the keen rookie could easily have been a real cliché but the relationship between Caz and MacInnes is real and fascinating from page one. I wanted more of it. It is exactly the kind of relationship that Keegan writes well.
Remarkably for a first novel, Keegan’s prose avoids the purple and the plodding. Functional and stripped down, short sentences and short chapters move the plot rapidly along. Particularly good are the workaday scenes of police procedural, the occasional tensions, the back-chat and badinage of long-time colleagues, the in-jokes, the nicknames and the wind-ups. When the story demands a change of tempo, Keegan knows how to slow it down; for example a brilliantly woozy account of the slightly drunk Caz being attacked in a rainy street or the third sentence here:

The afternoon was flat, grey and ordinary, not much wind, not too cold, not actually raining. It was very ‘British winter’, very ‘Brighton’. The reflecting shops on the hill were just ticking over, white-coated assistants in slow-frame passing soft bread rolls in paper bags to solitary customers. Doors opened with pinging bells.

Good writing by anyone’s criteria...


Keegan’s strengths are a refusal to lay on clues with a trowel, a willingness to leave things unresolved, an openness to the untidiness of real life and a fundamental trust in the attentiveness of his reader.
Cuckoo is a taut and exciting read. At the end of the book I wanted the next instalment, I want to meet the characters again. Any novelist who can do that is on to a winner; to do it in a first book is remarkable. With Cuckoo, a novelist has arrived fully-fledged and with Caz Flood, an exciting new detective is up and running.


The Hype Report: Dillons South-Coast Book Stores




Caz is a pleasure to meet, a real police detective, there to chase killers, not blow the feminist trumpet.

H R F Keating, Crime Writer. Winner of two Golden Daggers





Alex Keegan

Interview of Alex Keegan

Vanessa Gebbie, a former Boot Camper interviewed me extensively over a few weeks and is publishing the interview in parts here:


http://www.vanessagebbiesnews.blogspot.com/

Prize Details

Alex Keegan


After writing five crime novels and then switching to serious short fiction I have published more than 200 short pieces. Choosing the first collection was very difficult. It's not easy to "theme" my stories.

Then we struck on the simple idea of printing all or most of my prize-winning stories. Here are all bar two first prizes and three seconds. My next collection should feature one or more further winners plus some of my better publications.

It strikes me that "Ballistics" would make a fine set-book for an AK course in how to win writing competitions!

I think it's fair to say these stories disprove the old adage, "Those who can, do: Those who can't teach."



Ballistics

Won First Place in the Lichfield Short-Story Prize





Miguel Who Cuts Down Trees

Won First Place in the Cadenza Short-Story Prize

First Published in print in the excellent Cadenza Magazine






The Smell of Almond Polish

Won First Place in the Focus on Fiction Short-Story Prize

Judge Jo Good.

First Published in print in the Cadenza






Mother, Questions

Won Joint First Place in the Buzzwords Short-Story Prize, 2000

First Published in print in Buzzwords



Green Glass

Won First Place in the Buzzwords Short-Story Prize, 1999

First Published in print in Buzzwords





L for Laura; L for Love

Won First Place in the Southport Short-Story Prize



An Old Man Watching Football After Eating Sunday Lunch

Won First Place in the Pencil, Short-Story Prize, Bantry, Ireland




The Fucking Point Two

Won First Place in the Lichfield Short-Story Prize




Obelisk

Won First Place in the Lichfield Short-Story Prize



Spectacles, Testicles, Wallet & Watch

Won £300 First Place in the Peninsular Short-Story Prize

First Printed in Peninsular




The Last Love Letter of Berwyn Price

Won £1,000 Second Place in the Bridport Short-Story Prize

First Printed in the Bridport Prize Anthology



The Bastard William Williams

Won £1,000 Second Place in the Bridport Short-Story Prize

First Printed in the Bridport Prize Anthology



The Quarry

Won First Place in the Momaya Short-Story Prize

First printed in the Momaya Collection




Postcards From BalloonLand

Won £500 Second Place in the Raconteur Short-Story Prize

First Printed in Raconteur V



Tomatoes, Flamingos, Lemmings

Was Editor's Choice in The Fish Prize

First Printed in the Fish Anthology

This longer version was broadcast on BBC Radio 4






Meredith Toop Evans and His Butty Ernie the Egg

A 2,000 word version was a finalist in Story Cellar and printed in their collection

A 3,000 word version was £300 runner-up in The Rhys Davies Memorial Awards
and printed in the anthology "Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe" (Parthian Books)

This version was the inaugural story for Atlantic Monthly Unbound




Happy as Larry

sees its first publication and is a sampler of more recent work

Ballistics

Alex Keegan

BALLISTICS

ISBN 978-1-84471-477-3


Contents:


Ballistics

Miguel Who Cuts Down Trees

The Smell of Almond Polish

Mother, Questions

Green Glass

L for Laura; L for Love

An Old Man Watching Football After Eating Sunday Lunch

The Fucking Point Two

Obelisk

Spectacles, Testicles, Wallet & Watch

The Last Love Letter of Berwyn Price

The Bastard William Williams

The Quarry

Postcards From BalloonLand

Tomatoes, Flamingoes, Lemmings

Meredith Toop Evans and His Butty Ernie the Egg

Happy as Larry

Welcome

Many visitors to this site will know me either as a writer or a teacher. I have created this blog to chart events surrounding the publication of my first collection from SALT Publishing.

The picture above is the front cover, and I'm delighted with it. I took the shot of my son Toby some 28 years ago with a Canon A1 and a Tamron 500mm Mirror Lens.

It took some "burning" to get a decent photo as half of him was in bright sunshine!

Shortly I will post a list of the stories in Collection 1, and how they were chosen.

I'll post some of the blurb, too.


Alex Keegan