Kevin MacAlan
Poet, Author, and Photoartist
Kevin MacAlan’s home is in rural Co Waterford. He has an MA in Creative Writing, and has contributed poetry, fiction, and photoart to many journals. These include The Waxed Lemon, An Áitiúil, Howl, Recesses, Bindweed, Purple Unicorn Media, Datura, The Fish Barrel Review, The Martello, Mini Mag, and The Belfast Review. He was longlisted for The National Poetry Competition 2023 and The Fish Poetry Prize 2024.
Visit the blog 'Kevin MacAlan Writes'
Poetry
It has been said, that a poet "working towards their first collection" is as clichéd as an actor "resting" or being "between projects". In a recent interview for the Dungarvan Leader, Kevin said "I’m still studying poetry, still learning what it can do, and where it can be applied. I don’t know that I’ll ever muster a collection, but that’s a distraction which shouldn’t be allowed to detract from the excitement of every new individual piece."As part of that continued learning, Kevin has benefitted from the mentorship of several influential poets. Most recently he worked with Lismore poet Molly Twomey, an extraordinarily talented writer, but also a gifted teacher. In addition, he considers invaluable the collaboration and comradery of a collection of artists with whom he meets regularly. The West Waterford Poets, who are part of the overarching West Waterford Arts Group, have provided Kevin with support, inspiration, and an outlet for conversation and experimentation.Find below, Waterford Fields, a poem of Kevin's which found a home in An Áitiúil, a joint publication of The Madrigal Press and the Martello Journal. The poem is inspired by the place Kevin now calls home, after moving there in 2020 from Co Kildare. Blow-ins unite!
Waterford Fields
And when the boys have left their fields,
and left their youth,
and left their tight smooth skins,
the skies are dressed in colder sunsets,
blown further in,
pressed deeper into a slot of thought
less often dislodged as a memory
by the probing scratch of reminiscence.Etched into the dead-dark soil,
small allotments of wind-torn labour
in heathered fields strewn with dusk
on coastal farms grow sheep and old
and short of visions,
until ruptured dry-stones are the only sight:
sad patchworked silhouettes
stooped beneath the weight of darkening sky.Drumming winds erode to dust
each clump of grey-brown sod,
and drive to foam the bay’s wet head
to rob the farm as age robs man.
Dried and scarred, forced to grow or wither at rest,
an ancient mark stood against the cleansing rub,
the dripping rub, the endless rub
erasing youth from boys and boys from fields.
Further examples of Kevin's poetry can be found here on WestWaterfordPoet.ie
Fiction
Kevin has written professionally for more decades than he'd care to admit. During that time he has turned his hand to just about every form of composition there is. He has written jokes and sketches, short film scripts and feature screenplays, songs and jingles, sales scripts and advertising copy, he's been a technical author, a magazine editor, a ghost writer, a poet and a trade journalist. The one thing he keeps coming back to is fiction - full length fiction, short fiction, and even flash fiction.In addition to the MA in Creative Writing, Kevin has benefitted from a variety of extraordinary mentors over the years. These include Syd Fields and Robert McKee from the world of screenwriting, multi-award-winning novellist F. E. Smith, and more recently, Irish author Niamh Campbell. He is currently working on a novel, but progress is constantly interrupted by time taken to focus on poetry and short fiction, a pleasing amount of which has found homes in Irish publications and others around the world.
Kevin MacAlan, pictured with Lauren O'Donovan, who edited his story "The Cottage" for inclusion in Howl.(see the extract below)
An extract from The Cottage
Published in Howl 23 - a collection of new Irish writing.The cold bit through Oscar’s work gloves as he grasped the corrugated iron and wrenched aside the hanging door. It squealed in protest, the rusted wheels it hung from dragging across the runner, not rolling as they would have a lifetime before. Paint remained only in places, some flaking off the dinted corrugations, some dull and faded, but though mostly grey or rusted, the rattling tin curtain still lived up to the notion of a green door. Once open, it waved in the wind, clanging against the whitewashed stone walls of the single story shed until Oscar jammed it in place with the broken masonry block that had previously wedged it shut.
This was his now. The five degrees lost living halfway up the mountain might take some getting used to, but the proceeds from the sale of his father’s cosy coastal cottage when split with his sister had afforded him this home unencumbered, and unencumbered was the only way a man with his income and his history could live. Firing up the oil burner would certainly help.
A hole in the roof gaped above his head and whistling gusts rattled through the rotting timbers.
‘That’ll need fixing,’ thought Oscar, glancing around, and having the same thought a dozen times over.
Though the season boasted spring, Oscar’s breath condensed into ghostly mists which hung before him as his eyes accommodated to the gloom and took in the room. A vast green oil storage tank propped up on four piles of concrete blocks dominated the space which smelled of damp and soil, kerosene and desertion. He leant into the tank and lifted one end, the sloosh showed there was some fuel at home, the weight suggested not much.
In the far corner the oil burner, a Popular 90, sat thickly coated in brick dust and cobwebs. To the left of that a Welsh dresser standing five feet tall had three ornately fashioned wooden shelves fronting a knotted pine tongue-and-groove backboard above twin drawers and door-fronted cabinets. A quality piece of furniture, one cupboard had only half a door, one drawer had no front, the tongue-and-groove was dissembling. The dresser was here to die. It lay in state between the Popular 90 to its right, and an ancient wooden pallet, the sort used for handling loads with a forklift, to its left. The pallet was up ended and propped against the wall. Between the pallet and the wall three aged raw wood timber planks festooned in cobwebs and caked in dust appeared to defy gravity and stand to regimental attention. Oscar noted them but made a path toward his quarry: the Popular 90.
Later, with heat coursing through pipes and radiators, the cottage returned to life. It breathed. Oscar heard its old joints crack as they stretched. And when he stepped in from outside, stooping through the tiny front door directly into the one living room, he felt warmed. Along the back wall, a staircase led up to two bedrooms, access to the second being through the first. There was also a door into the kitchen, an obviously later addition. In the kitchen a door had been knocked through into part of the adjoining shed, the shed that housed the oil burner, except the part accessed via the kitchen had been walled off and fitted out as a bathroom. The only two chairs in the lounge faced the open fireplace, which, though modestly sized, had an impressive oak surround. One of these chairs, a high-backed dark wood rocker with well-worn carved arms, had a faded embroidered cushion in the seat secured at each corner by plaited silken cords. The other, a small Queen Anne with stained Damask upholstery, had wooden feet which seemed to have been gnawed by an animal. Oscar was pleased, but the kerosene was soon exhausted. He set a fire and watched the logs ripple with dancing flames. He sat in the small Queen Anne. Firewood crackled, and the warmth built beneath the room’s low ceiling. The rocking chair moved perceptibly. Oscar felt at home, but at somebody else’s home. It was dusk, and the only light inside the cottage came from the fire.
“What should I call you?” he asked gently. “Miss Ryan? Or can I call you Brigid?”
A wintry wind still clamoured outside, and a gust slipped beneath the door mewing like a stray and flickering the fire.
“Call me what you will,” Oliver heard.
“Brigid then.”
“I haven’t moved far.”
“I know. Just to the churchyard on the other side of the boreen.”
The draught beneath the door moaned.
‘That’ll need fixing,’ thought Oscar...
Kevin MacAlan edited the novel The Aoife Effect by Eamonn Cooney ISBN 978-1-7397173-0-8 available by clicking the link below, from all good bookshops, or online from Amazon.
Longlisted for a 2024 CAP Award!!!
Click the link below to buy a copy of The Aoife Effect directly from the editor: €20 including free delivery via An Post to any address in Ireland.
Photoart
Kevin's interest in visual art began when the science department at his school ran a photography club. It fell into the realm of after-school "science" because it involved not only taking photographs, but developing and printing them using a dark room set up in the labs. Nothing was digital in those days!
Developing your own prints was not commonplace in that era, and it afforded the opportunity to crop and compose images "in post". Kevin learnt a lot about composition, and experimented with the use of filters and image distortion to create photoart which was not necessarily a true representation of the original image.
Much later, he attended film school and attained a Director's Certificate in Cinematography, honing his feel for mise-en-scéne and developing an understanding for composing high-impact imagery.
These days he uses the simplest digital equipment available and trusts his eye and experience to produce photoart that is visually engaging, entertaining, and sometimes challenging.
This image, entitled Davitt's Quay, was first captured as a simple digital photograph of grafitti on a bollard in Dungarvan. After layering with filters, reducing the number of colours available to the composition, but enhancing their depth, the finished piece was published in issue 3 of The Waxed Lemon in 2022.
Limited Edition Framed Prints
Limited Edition
Kevin strictly limits the availability of his prints such that there are never more than 8 individual examples sold of any image in any size. Each print is numbered.Sizes
Nominally, regular prints are issued as "A4", but it is important to understand that this is a guide size only to distinguish between ranges. Each composition has its own aspect ratio and is trimmed accordingly, and the professionally applied frame adds to both the width and height. For instance, the "A4" print of Serenity measures 305mm (w) x 380mm (h) when framed. The "A4" print of Hedgecow is 380mm (w) x 325mm (h). If exact dimensions are critical, please ask.Prices
"A4" prints cost €180 plus p+p, although delivery to any address in Co Waterford is free.
"A3" prints cost €300 plus p+p, although delivery to any address in Co Waterford is free.Available Compositions
One or two examples are showcased below, but please feel free to browse my Instagram account and contact me should you be interested in a print of any image there. And, by all means, contact me if you have a particular image in mind.
This image, entitled Serenity, was captured from The Lookout in Dungarvan, Co Waterford.
"A4" professionally-framed print €180 - other sizes on request.
This image, entitled Hedgecow, was captured while walking boreens near the village of Kilbrien, in Co Waterford.
"A4" professionally-framed print €180 - other sizes on request.
Bibliography
This is not a comprehensive list. It is entirely likely that you will have come across Kevin's work in other books and publications, and certainly included in online anthologies or live events, but it is a guide to some of his recent activity and will be updated from time to time...The Aoife Effect - (Novel) Editor
The Waxed Lemon (issue 3) - (Photo) Davitt's Quay
An Áitiúil - (Poem) Waterford Fields
Recesses - (Fiction) Sorry I’m Late
Howl 23 - (Fiction) The Cottage
Infinity Wanderers - (Fiction) King of Alanstown
Bindweed - (Poems) Swing, Scarcely
Datura - (Poem) Her Shadow
Fish Barrel Review - (Photo) Crotty's Lake
Stripes - (Poem) Dear Reader
The Martello, Degeneracy - (Poem) Pyre
Mini Mag (issue 101) - (Photos) Bulmers' Orchard, Crookaun, O'Brien's Tower, O'Brien's Tower View, Dungarvan at Low Tide, (Poem) Found Wanting
Mini Mag (issue 103) - (Poems) Does Love, Musk, Youless.
Mini Mag (issue 106) - (Poems) Driven, Saab, Owl
The Belfast Review - (Photo) Tree Eats Fence
The Waxed Lemon (issue 8) - (Photo) Arklow
An Áitiúil III - (Short Non-Fiction) Láthair
For news and updates on my activities visit my blog
Contact
If you would like to contact me, then please leave your name and email address along with your message.
Thank you
I appreciate you taking the time to make contact. It might be a while before I am able to respond, but if your enquiry needs an answer, I will endeavour to be in touch.Kevin