Keith David McCoy

I was born and raised in Limerick, Ireland, and moved to London after finishing secondary school to attend university where I trained as a mental health nurse. Since then I completed a master's degree in mental health and an MBA. I am big into the arts, business and sport. I still work in mental health and these days I live in Manchester. Growing up I was never interested in books, I was very active, and just couldn't sit still, I found the idea of reading very boring. Then one summer in the late 90s I was working nights as a nurse and was doing suicide watch on one particular male patient, and ended up doing so with him for the whole summer. He was very depressed, would just lie there, and was totally uncommunicative. After about 3 nights, I was finding the task difficult and decided to buy a book to keep myself stimulated. I bought a biography of Frank Sinatra, and once I had settled down with this male patient for the night, I opened the book and he spoke to me for the first time, saying “ you can read that aloud if you want”. That summer I must have read at least a dozen books to him. Over time he recovered from his depressive episode, and I had developed a new and huge interest in books. I deliberately used humour in Hello Larry Barry. It is whacky and zany in parts, and written mostly as seen through the eyes of the person with the illness, so the reader can experience the chaos. When you are writing about a subject that for many is uncomfortable, writing it in dramatic reality makes it too heavy for most, so what I aimed to do and I hope I have achieved it, was use humour to engage the reader, get them enjoying the read, the fun, and then let everything sink in slowly, and gently provoke them to think about, and understand the subject matter differently. I truly hope I have done justice to those who have mental health challenges, and that it is recognised that I am not making light of their journey, just using the comedy to get the audience to think more deeply about mental health. When I got the idea for Hello Larry Barry, I was halfway through an MBA and busy, so I promised myself that I would have a bash at writing it when the degree was finished. Then after I had finished it, one day my son was telling me about how he was going to write a book too etc., and he explained some of his characters to me, so I thought to myself, how can I help him? and concluded that the best way would by being a good role model, and therefore I should crack on with trying to write Hello Larry Barry. The following day, I sat down and took on the challenge. I got huge enjoyment from writing Hello Larry Barry, the words just flowed. It was hugely exciting and the positivity that came each day from achieving a new part or direction to the story was immense. At the outset I wasn't sure if I could write it and just went for it, and then it was done. Since completing it, the personal impact has been interesting, from feelings of incredulity to just being calm and much more content with myself. It's hard to explain, maybe something to do with a renewed self-acceptance or something in relation to Identity. The Jude Crew was an idea I had been stewing on for a short while. Then one night when we were all allowed out for a walk, during the covid lockdowns, I gave my son a ten minute run down of the idea. He said, ' dad, you have to write it,' and then I did, over the summer of 2020. I set the story in the fictional town of Ballybeag in West Limerick, and used some of the architecture of the town I am from, Newcastle West, as a nod of respect to the town, when creating Ballybeag. The Jude Crew means a lot to me, and I am delighted I was able to pull it off. It explores the meaning of life. Schizo Pig isn't actually about a pig or a person, but I won't enlighten you any further, you will just have to read it. I am told it is a good read, so you don't need to worry. I wanted to revisit some of the characters from Hello Larry Barry, and did, and many of them do return in Schizo Pig, albeit quite different, as when you encountered them in Hello Larry Barry, you saw them through the eyes of someone that was delusional, but in Schizo Pig, you see them as they actually are in reality. Please bear in mind that Schizo Pig is crime fiction, whereas Hello Larry Barry is a comedy. Just because there is a link between the two books, it doesn't necessarily mean that because you like or dislike one, that you will feel the same about the other, because of course they are different genres. I think what Schizo Pig does, is maybe expalin why Ireland is the way it is. The motivation for writing The Con Club is rooted in my dismay at how England has taken a step or two backwards over the years, and how rotten some things currently are. The first three novels I wrote, it took me 12 consecutive weeks to get a first draft down, each time. One of the more unusual things I did when I was writing Hello Larry Barry, was each time I sat down to write it, I would listen to a track by the Doors called Love Street. I don't know why, I think it was a bit of a ritual. I didn't do that with any of the other novels. Writing the first draft of The Con Club took me 12 months in total, I would start and stop. There was certainly a few months, where I didn't even think about writing a line. All the best in everything and life, Keith.