Today I watched a tv news item on the closure of the border with Spain and, collaterally, of the pilgrimage route to Santiago, and it struck me that here was a tiny filament in the incomprehensibly complex web of fractures in the life of the world: like the shattered screen of a mobile phone, but not so easy to replace.
More EXIT 16
EXIT 16 is just somewhere on a motorway, in grey weather
EXIT 16
“The New Year came in with the smell of rancid electricity in the air, like burning circuitry.”
January 2019
A film noir drizzle is spangling the windows tonight, puddles fragmenting the street below, the wet sweep of traffic like windscreen wipers: reveal and erase, erase and reveal.
From: “THE FRENCH THING” (Carreg Gwalch, 2002)
“…that low-grade xenophobia that is never far below the surface in the English psyche; a dull and petulant hatred of the whole world, but especially of Europe. People talk about Ireland’s deadly affair with history, the gloomy steeples of Fermanagh and Tyrone, but really it is England that has the dismal and corrupting preoccupation with the past. Sometimes you feel …
RED HAMMER (from FLIRTING AT THE FUNERAL)
© Chris Keil 2012 “RED HAMMER” A play by Dave Leaper ACT ONE SCENE ONE As the lights come up on a stretch of isolated country road, we hear the sounds of a bus pulling away from a stop – hiss and clap of the door, EEH-AW screech of a klaxon, the roar of the motor shifting up …
May 26th
I’ve been watching a couple in their early forties in the square across the street, talking very intently under a tree, amongst the parked cars. There’s a kid with them, a boy of twelve or thirteen, that skinny, floppy-haired look they have, sometimes taking part in the conversation, sometimes stamping off, bouncing a ball on the pavement. He looks bored …
Porto, May
A film noir drizzle is spangling the windows tonight, puddles fragmenting the street below, the wet sweep of traffic like windscreen wipers: reveal and erase, erase and reveal.
Cillian Editing Services
My publisher, Mark Brady of Cillian Press, has just launched Cillian Editing Services – brilliant, innovative, setting a new standard of excellence. Check it out at: cillianeditingservices.co.uk
PORTO NOVEMBER 2017
So here I am, under a blue sky, turning my life around in my hands as though it was a book in a foreign language.
October
The unplumbed, salt, estranging sea.
EXIT 17
EXIT 17 is just somewhere on a motorway, in grey weather
Flirting at the Funeral – London Launch
View PostHay Festival 2013
View PostNew book
From The Ghostwriter’s Notebook Copyright © Chris Keil 2015 The Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena couldn’t tell me much about the asteroid 3408 Shalamov that I didn’t already know. They knew, obviously, that it had been discovered in 1977 by the Soviet astronomer Nikolai Chernykh, and is named after the author of Kolyma Tales. They’ve plotted its orbit, but they say …
Alan Bilton’s review of Flirting
View PostWales Arts Review
Thanks to Wales Arts Review for a nice review of Flirting at the Funeral in the latest issue. Even if you didn’t quite get Matty! Link: http://www.walesartsreview.org/flirting-at-the-funeral-by-chris-keil/
FROM “THE FRENCH THING” (CARREG GWALCH 2002)
“M. Dreyer drawled his fork across the plate with a disheartened gesture, stirring the frozen peas into little heaps. Beti finished her food with hurried, efficient movements. She pushed her plate to one side and picked at her teeth. Tom’s newspaper was folded on the table between them. There was a picture on the front page of an …
FROM “LIMINAL” (ALCEMI, 2007) CHAPTER THREE
“The colours of the map rose up at him out of the pool of lamplight: the lucent blue of the Halcyonic Gulf; the sand-shades of the littoral, deepening in tone as the mountains rose behind the sea; winding yellow roads, and everywhere churches, and the little broken pillars marking ancient sites. He traced a route along the shore with the …
New Flirting review
5.0 out of 5 stars Just incredibly brilliant, 8 Nov 2013 By Bob Ventos “Bob Ventos” (UK) – See all my reviews Amazon Verified Purchase(What is this?) This review is from: Flirting at the Funeral (Paperback) I bought this because I liked the title – but it was a great and surprising find. In fact, it’s the best novel I’ve read in several years. …
MORE WORDSTOCK NEWS
FLIRTING AT THE FUNERAL: I’ll be doing a reading/Q&A at Wordstock, Portland OR on Saturday October 5th at 2pm, signing books at 3.00 and leading a creative writing workshop at 4.30. Busy day!
HAY TRANSCRIPT
“The novel certainly came out of the optimism of the sixties and seventies, the feeling that the world might really be about to change, that anything was possible, that the old models of social, political, cultural life could be thrown out and utterly re-imagined; that there would be a series of concentric revolutions that would transform relations of class, …
FROM CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
“People slip away,” Howard said. “You have to hold on to them, or they slip away.” He walked through the vaulted archway of the gate-house into the dazzling afternoon light. “You can’t hold on to them,” Matty said, hanging back inside the key-hole of the arch. “They slip away anyway.” There was a slight resonance in her voice, a hollow echo. Howard turned, looking …
FULL AUDIO
View PostJon Day on Flirting
View PostFlirting and Cillian Press
Flirting at the Funeral is of course published by Mark Brady at Cillian Press, world’s most innovative indie publisher!
Flirting at the Funeral – London Launch
View PostAugust 21st 2016
View PostHay Festival 2013
View PostLONDON IN SEPTEMBER
Good morning! and goodnight!
Alan Bilton’s review of Flirting
View PostAUTUMN IN AMERICA
View PostWaterstones Carmarthen Book Launch
View PostWORDSTOCK 2013
WORDSTOCK 2013 – The festival schedule is now live http://www.wordstockfestival.com/festival-schedule/ Two hundred and thirty writers, and I’m one of them! I’m doing a writing class on Sex and the Serious Novel And I’m appearing on stage with Chelsea Cain – going to be seriously good fun! Check it out here: http://chelseacain.com/events/wordstock-readingtalkqa
HAY TRANSCRIPT
“The novel certainly came out of the optimism of the sixties and seventies, the feeling that the world might really be about to change, that anything was possible, that the old models of social, political, cultural life could be thrown out and utterly re-imagined; that there would be a series of concentric revolutions that would transform relations of class, …
FULL AUDIO
View PostJon Day on Flirting
View PostThe Forge at Gort Festival Easter 2013
They know how to do book festivals in the west of Ireland and Guinness and hot toddies and music in the bars at night… Mark Brady of Cillian Press (UK) – left – in expressive mode introducing Chris Keil (right) in a discussion and reading from ‘Flirting at the Funeral,’ chaired by poet Patrick Stack (centre) at The Forge at …
Flirting at the Funeral: The Movie
View PostEXIT 16
As they turned off the main road through tunnels of overhanging branches, the landscape opened up into broad stretches of parkland, mapped out by stone walls and stands of trees, rising in soft folds. At a cross-roads, Andy jerked his head to the right. “Whatsisname lives up that way,” he said. “You know, Cameron. Big place, drove past it with …
Porto in lock down
Today I watched a tv news item on the closure of the border with Spain and, collaterally, of the pilgrimage route to Santiago, and it struck me that here was a tiny filament in the incomprehensibly complex web of fractures in the life of the world: like the shattered screen of a mobile phone, but not so easy to replace.
Full audio
FLIRTING AT HAY You can hear the full audio version of my gig at Hay on the Festival site: http://www.hayfestival.com/p-5822-chris-keil-and-julian-preece.aspx But skip the first 34 minutes!
August 21st 2016
View PostFrom the Notebook 2
It was sunset, and windy; the house was on the top of a hill. They were lighting fires and heaping rubbish into piles, throwing furniture out of the front door. They were intoxicated with leaving.
From the Notebook
From: The Ghostwriter’s Notebook Copyright © Chris Keil 2015 “Disgusting old man, that porrnographer. I met him Stephen you know, in Petersburg in 2005; he dribbles. I think he pisses pants also.” Fabienne was pouring herself a drink, her back to the room. “You’re so rude, darling,” she said. She turned to look at me. “He can’t help it, I …
WORKING SPACE
The Ghostwriter’s Notebook
LONDON IN SEPTEMBER
Good morning! and goodnight!
LISBON
I’m borrowing an apartment in Lisbon, fabulously glamorous city in a wonderfully frayed and tattered, ever-so-slightly seedy sort of a way, perfect belle époque, faded, a little down-at-heel, a courtesan of a certain age, irresistible! And I’m getting some writing done; for some reason my imagination is being fed raw meat here, even though I’m writing about London and …
Porto, August 2014
A Garden of Forking Paths in Porto, a Borges afternoon
LISBON, July 2014
Lisbon in July, the most beautiful city in the world!
Flirting at the Book Fair
I shall be reading from “Flirting at the Funeral” at the Manchester Book Market on Sunday, June 7th. Not to be missed!
FERN HILL UNREMEMBERED
Empty, neglected and falling into dereliction, surrounded and ignored by orgies of congratulatory self-promotion, this is Fern Hill in centenary April.
Alan Bilton’s review of Flirting
View PostWales Arts Review
Thanks to Wales Arts Review for a nice review of Flirting at the Funeral in the latest issue. Even if you didn’t quite get Matty! Link: http://www.walesartsreview.org/flirting-at-the-funeral-by-chris-keil/
FROM “THE FRENCH THING” (CARREG GWALCH 2002)
“M. Dreyer drawled his fork across the plate with a disheartened gesture, stirring the frozen peas into little heaps. Beti finished her food with hurried, efficient movements. She pushed her plate to one side and picked at her teeth. Tom’s newspaper was folded on the table between them. There was a picture on the front page of an …
New Flirting review
5.0 out of 5 stars Just incredibly brilliant, 8 Nov 2013 By Bob Ventos “Bob Ventos” (UK) – See all my reviews Amazon Verified Purchase(What is this?) This review is from: Flirting at the Funeral (Paperback) I bought this because I liked the title – but it was a great and surprising find. In fact, it’s the best novel I’ve read in several years. …
Jon Day on Flirting
View PostMore Hay 2013
Big thanks to everyone involved in Hay Festival 2013, and to all the lovely people who came to see me. What a nice occasion!
More Flirting reviews
Great review for Flirting at the Funeral on the Whichbook site: “A powerful, raging novel…” http://www.openingthebook.com/whichbook/book.aspx?id=10981 … … … … …
Marni Jackson’s review of “Flirting at the Funeral.”
Writer, award winning journalist and film co-writer, Toronto based Marni Jackson gives her thoughts on Chris Keil’s latest novel Flirting at the Funeral. “Matty, the character I found so charming in the early bits, evolves into a wonderful monster, whose artistry is undermined by ambition, narcissism and and living in the past. Howard became one of my favourite characters, his …
Review in NWR
“Portugal, romance, film, terrorism, materialism & European capitalism. Highly topical, in the week the European Council got the Nobel Peace Prize! Chris Keil’s Flirting at the Funeral is reviewed by Katherine Stansfield in NWR spring edition.” Gwen Davies, Editor New Welsh Review
Flirting reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars I want to read the sequel!, 12 Oct 2012 By Bananas – See all my reviews This review is from: Flirting at the Funeral (Paperback) This is a gripping, poignant and immersive read. Maybe it will resonate particularly with those who lived the time. The sequel would allow Matty to come through with integrity after doing away with Arno and …
Amazon reviews for Flirting at the Funeral
Flirting at the Funeral by Chris Keil Edition: Paperback Price: £9.99 5.0 out of 5 stars Its fun to flirt, 15 Oct 2012 This review is from: Flirting at the Funeral (Paperback) I read the second of Chris Keil’s books, Liminal and found the story much more engrossing when the action switched from Wales to Greece. It is the same with his third book, Flirting …
Flirting at the Funeral – London Launch
View PostHay Festival 2013
View PostFLIRTING AT THE NEW BREWERY ARTS CENTRE
To everyone who came to the New Brewery Arts Centre in Cirencester last night and bought copies of “Flirting at the Funeral” – big thanks for warmth, wine, hospitality, enthusiasm and, of course, impeccable literary taste! What a nice town Cirencester is!
Waterstones Carmarthen Book Launch
View PostWORDSTOCK 2013
WORDSTOCK 2013 – The festival schedule is now live http://www.wordstockfestival.com/festival-schedule/ Two hundred and thirty writers, and I’m one of them! I’m doing a writing class on Sex and the Serious Novel And I’m appearing on stage with Chelsea Cain – going to be seriously good fun! Check it out here: http://chelseacain.com/events/wordstock-readingtalkqa
WORDSTOCK WORKSHOP
Title of creative writing workshop at Wordstock: SEX AND THE SERIOUS NOVEL The workshop will look at the role of the erotic in literary fiction: sometimes moving, sometimes embarrassing, sometimes unintentionally hilarious. Sex is a major part of life; why do so many serious writers have such trouble writing about it?
MORE WORDSTOCK NEWS
FLIRTING AT THE FUNERAL: I’ll be doing a reading/Q&A at Wordstock, Portland OR on Saturday October 5th at 2pm, signing books at 3.00 and leading a creative writing workshop at 4.30. Busy day!
FLIRTING IN AMERICA
If you happen to be in the Pacific North West this autumn, come and see me at WORDSTOCK, Oregon Convention Center Portland, OR – October 5th/6th Good times guaranteed!
HAY TRANSCRIPT
“The novel certainly came out of the optimism of the sixties and seventies, the feeling that the world might really be about to change, that anything was possible, that the old models of social, political, cultural life could be thrown out and utterly re-imagined; that there would be a series of concentric revolutions that would transform relations of class, …
WORDSTOCK 2013
If you missed me at Hay in June, you can catch me at Wordstock in October! The Wordstock Festival takes place at the Oregon Convention Center, Portland, USA, October 3rd-6th. And I’m going to be there!
FULL AUDIO
View PostFlirting and Cillian Press
Flirting at the Funeral is of course published by Mark Brady at Cillian Press, world’s most innovative indie publisher!
Flirting at Hay in audio
Chris Keil discusses his latest novel “Flirting at the Funeral” at HAY 2013 with NWR editor Gwen Davies
FLIRTING AT HAY
Really looking forward to being at Hay with FLIRTING AT THE FUNERAL on June 2nd! http://www.hayfestival.com/p-5822-chris-keil-and-julian-preece.aspx
GORT – THE MOVIE
Gort Literature Festival: searing documentary footage from the legendary bookfest!