Alex Keegan's Ballistics

Boot Camp 2011 Prompts 9

2011-01-03T01:10:00.001-08:00

A - We walk, rest, eat, talk a little

B - SOS, seen from outer space

C - There is no magic

D - We pay, but with a certain anger

E - TASK: Play Buckley's "Hallelujah"on repeat and write a story

F - A drawer full of brass swastikas

G - So many things have passed, will pass again

H - Clarinet

I - TASK: Write something as a response to a Shakespeare play

J - Roundabout

K - A Story beginning: There were three of us, and Jones

L - How love becomes hate

M - Loan

N - A short walk in a storm

O - A story ending: And now I must sleep

P - Something scribbled in my mother's hand-writing

Q - TASK:

R - The Names of the Months

S - Those who are with us, are with us. That is enough

T – Smooth it down

U - I wrote it in San Bartolome

V - Pushing harder, hurting less

W - The evening bells like dying cattle

X - Javelin

Y - Play The Birdy Song for me and dance

Z - I had a strategy when I started

December Prompts 009

2010-12-09T03:48:00.001-08:00

I have decided to be a dog

The soft eyes close

We take our shoes off at the door, we smell lavender

A small English boy wearing a German helmet

Can you move the Mini?

Mr and Mrs Wales are Dead

Digging up Bones

An island of Apples

Press button for laughter

Barely thirteen months after

We have sold the horses and bought a tractor

Yellow Peril

Should we kill the chicken or wait for eggs?

Do not expect applause

How long does the sound of an accident linger?

Wearing Shorts

December 004 Prompts

2010-12-04T04:13:00.000-08:00

Boot Camp Keegan's FREE DECEMBER and half-price 2011 offer is still on (closes Dec 30th)..

remember VAT rise in 2011

PROMPTS

Walking with the dogs on Watership Down

Rice & Beans

£100

Not that much ice

Justified

How the music changes, how it falls

The sound of feet upon the stairs

'Night everybody, Love You!

Signed: Officer of Revenue & Customs

Genius

April 24, 2009. Lens Protector

Tail End Charlies

Home-Run

Includes all thirteen episodes

Going out of your way for the hitch-hiker

Peas or Beans

One day it will come back

Dear Sir, please find enclosed

Sprawl

Here's an idea. Build a tower for the dead and make it taller for each of the killed

Freebie Time

2010-11-30T00:05:00.001-08:00

http://bootcampkeegan.yuku.com/topic/12840/master/1/

One Village at a Time

2010-02-20T04:54:00.001-08:00

Changing the World

One Village at a Time

Alex Keegan: alex.keegan@btinternet.com

My wife works for BT but has been working on secondment with Global-Ethics and One Difference. Global Ethics works by selling products and using all the profits to fund good work in sub-Saharan Africa. Recently Debbie went to see how just £7,000 can transform the life of a community by giving a village access to clean, safe water.

I became interested, not solely because I care, but because I can see a way to raise money, and directly understand the result. Supporting huge charitable organisations is, for me, soulless. They are all, no doubt “worthy” but I have no emotional sense of my money or my effort doing something specific.

I love the simple beliefs of Global Ethics and “One” and I want to raise as many of those £7,000 units as I can. To be able to start with nothing and end with a specific village, real people, and know we have changed lives and saved lives, that is just fantastic.

That’s where the “I” stops. Now about US.

March 22nd is World Water Day, and quite naturally Global Ethics will be holding various events. Here is OUR event, on behalf of G-E and ONE, us, Joe and Jane Soap, getting together to aim to build one pump, two pumps, four pumps, ten.

IN ONE DAY.

The idea is simple. It is aimed at both READERS and WRITERS. We want a thousand people to commit to just one 24-Hour effort on March 22nd.

Think, if 1,000 people pledge £7 (the joining fee) we have a Play-Pump. If we get 2,000 people and they raise sponsorship, of, say, £70 each, that would be 22 Play-Pumps, twenty-two villages, thousands, THOUSANDS of people whose lives we change for the better, forever.

HERE’s the DEAL.

Starting at midnight March 21st (00:01 on March 22nd) a group of writers start writing stories. They write one an hour, and they try to stay awake, writing, for as much of the twenty-four hours as they can. Sure many will need to take a break and sleep, but some hardy souls will last the 24 Hours (only the first six hours are tough) helped on their way by the knowledge of what they are achieving, and that they are being read (more on this later) and that at the end of it there will be an anthology of the best work, and their name, their achievement posted in perpetuity.

We have run such “crazy” marathons before raising money for various causes. In one we had a THIRTY hour marathon. Half a dozen hardy souls managed the whole thing and we raised more than ten-thousand pounds.

But that was an impromptu, shoe-string, just-tell-friends congregation. Think how different this could be with Global-Ethics and ONE behind us, and with some truly spectacular prizes for readers and writers.

I am visiting Global-Ethics on Wednesday 24th February to tie-up the prize-structure and some truly wonderful opportunities for supporters of “One Village at a Time” the marathon itself.

What Would You Have to Do?

WRITERS

1 Sign up as soon as possible, pay just £7 to join, direct to G-E or ONE.

2 Tell your friends what you are doing.

3 Beg steal and borrow sponsorship

4 Start at 00:01 and write a story.

5 Continue writing or take breaks, trying to write as much as you can.

6 Post on the Facebook and other forums and be enthusiastic.

READERS

1 Sign up as soon as possible, pay just £7 to join, direct to G-E or ONE.

2 Tell your friends what you are doing.

3 Beg steal and borrow sponsorship.

4 Read stories and comment (they will be anonymous)

5 Continue reading or take breaks, trying to read as much as you can.

6 Post on the Facebook and other forums and be enthusiastic.

We are in discussion on the specifics but G-E/ONE will be offering superb prizes in a number of categories, and one will be spectacular, involving shiny airplanes, and crossing the equator.

Visiting one of the villages and seeing the children, seeing them having fun on a play-pump, seeing all that beautiful, clean, safe water… that is a life-changing experience. It could be yours.

The Suggested Categories might be…

Best Story or Stories (General)

Best “African” Story or Stories

Best Poems

Best Motivator, Best Helper

Top Sponsorees

What Do I Say to My Prospective Sponsors?

WRITERS could ask for a fixed amount, or a payment per story, or so much a word, or could ask for so much “per hour I stayed awake.”

READERS could ask for a fixed amount, or a payment per story read, or could ask for so much “per hour I stayed awake.”

Prizes will be funded from Story Fees. I believe prizes are necessary as they give the writers a genuine challenge, a competitive field, and help raise energy levels.

But we want to raise money for the charity, AND have fun.

You raise money for the charity by

(1) Paying the joining fee and
(2) Asking Friends and Family to sponsor you.

If you then are entering a story or stories in the short-story writing competition “in the normal way” you would pay a fee for that, but note ALL entry fees will go to prizes. That is, if we collect £10,000 in entry fees, we will pay out £10,000 in cash or goods.

Payments will go direct to Global-Ethics/ONE

Please note you might write 2, 5, 10 or 24 stories. We hope you would send them all in, but you would NOT be required to enter every story in the competition!

As the maximum theoretically possible would be 24 stories at £5, I would suggest that any writer raising £120 or more in sponsorship would be allowed to enter his/her stories free.

Thus some contestants could raise money in £5 amounts, others raise money by persuading friends to sponsor them.

Prizes and Prize-Giving

This will be arranged, probably in London, by Global-Ethics

Look on Facebook for:

GROUP: One Village at a Time

EVENT: One Village at a Time

Please, only join the group and/or the event if you are prepared to actively participate. Firstly, pay that £7.

Don’t “just join” the group or the event. Putting your name on the list tells us that you are serious and want to build these Water Pumps.

There will be a lot of news forthcoming in the next week. Prizes will be firmed up, the Prize Day will be announced, and details of the anthology will be confirmed.

Please SIGN UP. When you sign up, post your targets as a reader or a writer. Please post and say, “I have signed. I pledge my £7. I will raise sponsorship and I am aiming for £X,XXX
We can build a Play-Pump

We can build another.

We can change the world ONE VILLAGE AT A TIME

Another Amazon Review

2009-07-24T06:55:00.000-07:00

5.0 out of 5 stars

Short stories that track your heart and won't let you go,

17 Jul 2009

Tamera (London, England)

Ballistics: Short stories that track your heart and won't let you go. From a writer taking time to discover his ageing relative; kids with home-made crossbows out to destroy the Dirty Old Man, a barmaid courted with facts for over a decade; a daughter mutilated, a family destroyed, by a fateful set of keys. These stories are a fascinating combo of bold, gut wrenching, funny, and skilful writing. Alex Keegan has won many prizes and this collection shows exactly what makes a winning short story.

If you love short stories then you must read this book. If you love novels then you must read this book: it's just like being immersed in a novel with intricate layers that resonate long after you've put the book down. Buy and savour!

Ballistics Review by Barry Cooper

2009-07-21T12:52:00.001-07:00

I hate Alex Keegan.

He expects you to write every day AND review his books. In spite of all that, I have managed to read Ballistics, in between writing EVERY DAY, rehearsing for a performance thingy and running a writers' group. So here goes.

Reading Alex Keegan's BALLISTICS is quite an experience. His heroes are not the sort you run down the the main street to watch go past, they probably have more affiliation with those that do the running. Little events happen to little people in such a way that you feel the same joy or concern that you would if you were a family member. I offer a quote by le Vicomte de Chateaubriand (1768-1848) "The original writer is not he who refrains from imitating others, but he who can be imitated by none." Alex's stories are Alex's stories.

If there is any downside, it may be that the sentiment of some of the more colloquial pieces may be lost on certain people who have not visited Wales and experienced their fierce pride, especially in the valleys.

Writers Who Run; Runners Who Write

2009-06-23T01:41:00.000-07:00

Morning Folks.

I am on Facebook as AlexBootCampKeegan (all one word) and I have just started a group called

Runners Who Write; Writers Who Run

The following is a note I've posted on FaceBook about it. If you write ad run (should be BOTH, that's the point) then why not join me?

I have only run three hours in the last 4-5-6 months but I was a serious veteran club runner AND I WILL BE RUNNING TODAY.

Imagine going on a writers retreat where you ran first thing in the morning and everyone was so ALIVE!

I have just finished a weekend of teaching creative writing in a very intense atmosphere, up around 0600, going to bed around 0100. That intensity was on the back of almost thirty days of non-stop, heavy-duty writing and too many late nights. I went INTO the course dog-tired.

Once upon a time, as an athlete, I would have been overjoyed at the surroundings of the chapel. All those fantastic runs, with great views. This time I went, only just recovered from an injury having done no exercise whatsoever for six weeks and abusing my body with too-long days, too much time at the computer and too much (I drink when I write a lot) wine.

But one of the ladies on the course was out first morning, out there running with the sea air in her face. Day Two I HAD to go out.

I was three stones and more (as much as fifty pounds) over my racing weight, unfit, slightly upset tummy, hungover, mentally running on empty AND WE WALKED-RAN FOR TWO HOURS.

We didn't exactly hammer things. I wouldn't be surprised to discover that our mile-running pace was nearer ten minutes than nine, but we walked up those hills, ran along the cliffs, saw an amazing blue lagoon, came back sweaty (and I was sore) but the day FLEW by and I was twice as good a teacher, full of energy again.

This is what I remember when I was running a lot (up to seventy miles a week at my peak).

The physical, mental, philosophical side-effects of running are fantastic. When I'm fit, especially through running (and carrying a lot less weight) I feel younger, sharper, cleverer and insights come so fast I can't catch them all. I used to say running "empties my head of fat".

So, I want to form a group of people who firstly consider themselves writers (whether professionals or serious non-professionals) people who wake up and 19 days out of 20 are immediately thinking, "When and where today will I get my writing space?"

Ability and publications is NOT the point, desire an seriousness, and how you define yourself is the mark of "writer". I was unpublished when my son Alex was born. On the birth certificate my wife, unprompted, put my profession down as writer. That must mean I was, even if the 350-400 publications I now have hadn't started.

And running?

Well, the definition of writer is above. My definition of runner is similar. Do you get up evry day WANTING to run? Is it your main way of being fit? You may or may not be super-slim or fast, but at some time in your past you ran seriously (say 4-5 or more days a week) and raced a bit (even if you finished way down the field.

You own running shoes, shorts, vests etc and you get somewhere and you want to run, want to run, want to run.

You might be like I am right this minute (but watch this space) grossly overweight and maybe a bit ashamed, with short-term and long-term injuries. Running might now make you breathless. You aren't supple, you may not be quite so young. There's no way you are going to enter the next County Cross-Country, and the idea of The National, try to stop laughing.

BUT, like with me last weekend, someone was going running and you HAD TO try, because that's what you are, even if you're a fat old fat, you define yourself as a runner, you want to be fit again, want to feel that sharpness in body, brain and soul.

You quite like the idea, a year down the line, of a half-marathon where every person in the field is a writer. Wouldn't that be glorious?

JOIN ME!!

PS

If you write and don't run, START.

Date Change for Newbury Talk

2009-06-17T06:36:00.001-07:00

My SIGNING date at Newbury Borders remains the same (27 June)

but the talk/reading will now take place at 8:30 PM
Wednesday 8th July (one week earlier)

Oxford Street

2009-06-17T06:35:00.001-07:00

Oxford Street signing now advertised on the Borders web-site

Signing in Oxford St, London

2009-06-16T05:16:00.000-07:00

I will be signing copies of Ballistics from 12 Noon until 4PM at

BORDERS, Oxford Street, London

Saturday July 18th

Please come along if you are in London that day and say hello.

Third Review Amazon UK

2009-06-15T16:07:00.000-07:00

5.0 out of 5 stars

A magician with words, 14 Jun 2009

By DJM King "david61751" (Australia)

Alex Keegan writes some of the finest short fiction around and this collection contains some of the best examples of his art.

`Ballistics', a chilling but poignant account of human anger that gives rise to disastrous consequences, was an excellent choice as the title story. Personal favourites are however those written in Keegan's inimitable Welsh voice: 'Meredith Toop Evans and his Butty Ernest Jones'; 'The Last Love Letter of Berwyn Price'; and 'The Bastard William Williams'.

Like the pauses between musical notes, the stories in this book will ring true long after the last sentence has been read. Keegan's magic lies in what is being said without the saying. His stories are never short in the real term.

David and Myra King

New Amazon Review of Ballistics

2009-06-14T10:12:00.000-07:00

4.0 out of 5 stars

Perfect Nuggets of Truth,

June 14, 2009
By
Diana Forrester "reader" (Grove City, OH)

Alex Keegan's Ballistics is a stunning collection of stories filled with grit, blood and truth. In the title story a toddler is blinded by his father's love _and_ anger. His life resonates with a need for understanding. In The Smell of Almond Polish(my favorite) Bridie Collins' life is filled with choices before it turns full circle taking her back to its beginning. In Post Cards from Balloonland, a man leaves a legacy for his children as he prepares to die. Each story contains its own nugget of truth, told perfectly, ready for you to read and ponder. You will not regret buying this book and while you are at it you should buy one for a friend

Where We Come From

2009-06-12T04:49:00.000-07:00

OVERWRITING!

In Ballistics, the Story, "The Smell of Almond Polish" opens:

Paddington, London 1954

Bridie Collins steps down from the train, waits for the crowd to wrap her up. She looks above her; pigeons scattering under the great glass roof. Someone bumps her shoulder, rushes on. In the half-light she shivers, picks up her cardboard case and walks towards the ticket collector.

On the train, from Wales, Bridie had listened to the clattering songs in the track. "Did she do right? Well, did she do right? What could she have done? What should she have done? Was it right, was it right, was it right?"

After twenty-minutes, about an hour-and-a-half ago, the train had slowed down, clacking and slapping as it crossed points, then easing into the dark Severn tunnel. Bridie had felt her first real moment of guilt, then. How could she have left Pat, Jenny, Ronnie? And Barbara, Angela? Smoke had leaked in through an open window, but then the train emerged into light sunlight, bright, fresh English green, and she was excited. Now the rails whispered, "Of course it was right. Of course it was right. What else could you do, could you do, could you do? It was right. It was right. It was right."

*

The ticket-collector is a darkie. He smiles, has gold on one tooth. Bridie smiles back. Steam hisses somewhere, everything smells of sulphur. People push round her. She picks up her little case and walks out of the station into a damp morning. She has nowhere in the world to go.

250 words

I have just found the same scene in a novel I started when I didn't have much of a clue. it's 416 words but WHAT words!

Please ensure you are sitting down before you begin reading this:

Nineteen Fishguard to Paddington trains had now clacked neutrally through the back-garden mishap of London. The dry late September was a gagging dust and sweaty afternoon. On the second of those nineteen trains, in third class, feeling the sulphury tang of smoke and disembodied breaths, Bridie Jones had been chained to a corner seat. Somewhere furiously inside the sadness and lethargy of the flat, unseeing look she had was the fiery dream of the fifteen year-old that had left Cork to change the world a little. Now the red laughter and temper had turned inward as a tiny voice agreed with the running train in her brain.

“Of course you did right!”
“Of course you did right!”
“Of course you did right!”

The skin at the edge of her right eye was bored deep a trench that was the mark of the window surround. Snakes of wires and banks and poles ran a high sea of speed across her face, raced round the carriage wall and died. Somehow, the brown eyes didn’t quite focus on the greens and blacks. What was out there was of no consequence, just as the train was a limbo between breaths where thoughts lasted forever and came again and again and again and again...
__________________________________________________________________

A dark metal animal had hissed steam at the dead-end bumpers of Platform Five, Paddington. People were with newspapers and taking heavy battered suitcases for walks. Trickles of them unstrapped doors and fell to the platform. The stream burbled along the smooth stone floor and washed against the trellis end-gates and a thin, wrinkled man. Miles away, the sky was laced with iron and glass and a heartless, toneless voice filled the air. To breathe, there was no way except to swallow the bark of “Bristol, Paignton and Torquay” and anyone who noticed could taste the acid and coal of each letter as it melted in the mouth. It was a place full of people, and, like any other station, it was the coldest, saddest, loneliest place on earth. Mary Bridget Jones was on her own. Behind her a single ticket cooled from the warmth of her body and was buried in the bony cold of business trips, holidays and going-homes. As she looked at the fat black clock and saw ten-past-six, the ticket-man took his last piece of cardboard and touched his cap. The fingerprints on one piece of green were fifty-six tickets from the first and more than a hundred lives from the last.

===================================

Incidentally, as far as I can remember I wrote "Almonds" 10-15 years after the attempt at a the novel, and I don't think I copied and edited.

Two Reviews (2)

2009-06-12T04:48:00.000-07:00

By CM Davies "CMD" (Milton Keynes, United Kingdom)

Alex Keegan has won numerous prizes for his short stories. This collection represents the best of his work including the 'The Last Love Letter of Berwyn Price' and 'The Bastard William Williams', both prize winners in the Bridport International competition.

If you have any aspirations towards writing stories yourself then buy this book to read a master at work. Keegan can take a man finishing with his girlfriend and crushing a wine glass in his nervousness and turn this 'Green Glass' into a metaphor for the resonant failures of his life.

If you simply want a good book to read then many of these stories pack as much punch as most contemporary novels.

Two Reviews (1)

2009-06-12T04:47:00.000-07:00

At Amazon

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stories full of deep humanity and wonderful writing, 3 Jun 2009

By Alexandra Fox (UK)

I've never read any other collection with the breadth and quality of Alex Keegan's Ballistics. Each story here is already a prizewinner, and it's easy to see why.

Ballistics itself is a stunning short story, unravelling the consequences of a shocking event forward and back through two lives, tightly written and juxtaposing self-analysis with a deep and genuine humanity. This same humanity runs through all the stories in this unforgettable collection. There are moments of pathos, particularly in "Postcards from Balloonland" and the final story, "Happy as Larry", which cannot fail to move the reader, without ever veering into sentimentality. My own favourite is probably "Meredith Toop Evans", the story of the inexorable rise of Ernie the Egg from pit-boy to Caerphilly egg magnate, one of three stories in this collection written in the author's authentic Welsh lilt. The stories range from a fact-collecting barmaid to amputee marathon runners, from park football to Welsh rugby, from survivors of a train crash to desperate children building a crossbow. They're the kind of stories that you read, then sit and think about, then have to read again. I'd particularly recommend the weird but strangely resonant story of Miguel Who Cuts Down Trees, and the utterly believable Bridie Collins facing a mother's impossible decision in "The Smell of Almond Polish".

I know the author not only as a writer but as a forthright and exceptional teacher, with a deep and knowledgeable love of the short story.

Tender, funny, dark, clever, above all human - and always exquisitely written and authentically voiced - if you haven't read any of Alex Keegan's work before, you're in for a treat.

Ballistics on the Road

2009-06-07T04:59:00.001-07:00

JUNE 27th

I'll be signing at BORDERS, Newbury 11:30 onwards

JULY 11th (Saturday)

I'll be signing in Waterstones Winchester Saturday, July 11th, coinciding with The Music and Literary Festival there.

JULY 15th WEDNESDAY 8:30 PM

CHANGED TO SAME TIME ONE WEEK EARLIER JULY 8TH

I'll be giving a reading/talk at BORDERS, Newbury after closing, in Starbucks upstairs

Book Signing

2009-06-06T07:26:00.000-07:00

I'll be signing in Borders, Newbury

11:30 Saturday June 27th

http://newbury.borders.co.uk/events/newbury/39/

for details

The Ballistics Handbook

2009-06-05T15:21:00.001-07:00

Today, I finished Volume One of The Ballistics Handbook

A craft book that refers a great deal to Ballistics

Cool Idea. Where did YOU read Ballistics?

2009-06-03T11:47:00.002-07:00

Just had a really cool idea. Saw a pikki of writer Jo Mortimer reading something or other in Jerusalem and joked that the book should be BALLISTCS.

How about everyone who actually has a copy, get some photographs taken, a person or persons reading Ballistics, but every picture in a different environment, with different views.

It could be a lotta fun.

Send a copy to me and I'll post it here.

Appearances

2009-05-30T09:34:00.000-07:00

NEWBURY BORDERS

I'm attending a Poetry Night on Wednesday, 17th June at 8.30pm, with a few poets from Flipped Eye Publishing (www.flippedeye.net). (Just as a guest)

Nice to meet up with folks!

I am book-signing Saturday, 27th of June at NEWBURY BORDERS

Then I'm speaking/reading at NEWBURY BORDERS Wednesday, 15th July at 8:30PM

Great VIDEO!

2009-05-30T09:30:00.000-07:00

Check Out

~THIS~

http://saltpublishing.com/

They have a neat video "VIRTUAL REP" and Ballistics gets featured twice. COOL!

The Ballistics Sales Force & Fans

2009-05-28T05:24:00.001-07:00

The Ballistics Sales Force & Fans is a FaceBook Group open to all.

Please join, see what we are trying to do, help SALT!

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=40225229979

Help out Salt

2009-05-20T09:47:00.000-07:00

Folks, I heard on the grapevine that SALT PUBLISHING
have had a serious drop in cash-flow and really need some urgently

If we could all of us buy just one book
(but I guess a few more would be a good thing)
that would surely help a lot.

If you don't have a copy of Ballistics order one today, PLEASE.

I think if you order direct it's better for them, but you can order through Amazon or a bookshop, anywhere

Ballistics: Alex Keegan

ISBN 978-1-84471-477-3

Maybe you could buy 1-2 of mine as presents, help two causes at the same time?

(Smile at this point)

Save the short-story. Support short-story publishers.

Alex

Capel Bethel

2009-03-13T16:22:00.000-07:00

The Beta of Capel Bethel's Web Site is now up

http://web.me.com/snowball136/Site_2/Welcome.html

Ballistics at Salt

2009-01-13T03:44:00.000-08:00

Salt Publishing now have Ballistics up as a web site

HERE

Ballistics Bash

2009-01-09T10:11:00.000-08:00

The Book Launch followed by Pizza is

Date: Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Time: 6:00pm - 9:00pm

Location: Pizza Paradiso

35 Store Street (off Tottenham Court Road)

London

As things are tight and many publishers can't chip in for launches (unless your a corrupt ex-MP who writes trash) I've combined the get-together and the launch at Pizza Paradiso, starting at 6PM (pay-bar, no freebies) and eating at 7:30

There's plenty of room for more people, BUT PLEASE DO NOT TURN UP UNLESS YOU'VE BOOKED A PLACE THROUGH ME OR HAD A FORMAL INVITE.

That's because the restaurant needs accurate numbers to set up the room

I look forward to seeing you and your friends

Alex

In My Sticky Hands

2009-01-09T10:06:00.000-08:00

I have had my author's copies and a couple of boxes of "Ballistics" here for a few days but, laid low with this monstrous bug, I've been taking the read slowly.

First thoughts is it looks GREAT! (Thanx Jen)

Second thoughts I omitted thanks to a very kind BCer who copy-edited the MS and I now feel guilty as well as sick

and third I forgot to thank a fellow writer (here) for a quoted part

I'd hang myself but I'm too tired to climb up on a chair.

FOURTH THOUGHT

How different to read a story CAREFULLY in print, in a collection. IMO they read about 50% better than when we print them off or read on line.

Alex

A Bag Full of Interviews

2008-12-18T01:14:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-17T09:51:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-17T08:16:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-17T07:30:00.001-08:00

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

2008-12-17T07:23:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-17T07:18:00.003-08:00

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

2008-12-17T07:14:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-15T00:58:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-14T13:37:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-14T13:12:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-14T12:52:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-14T12:44:00.000-08:00

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