I’m very excited today to welcome fellow Darkstroke author, poet and film-maker, Kevin Carey to my blog.
I have always liked a good story. It’s how I think about the world I guess, everyone has a story, right? I get to tap into those. The people and places I’ve known seem to be able find their way into my prose and my poetry.
Writing is work though. It takes time and practice (like anything you want to be good at). The key is to always be writing. And reading. If you are serious about writing it helps to be an avid reader.
I feel lucky to be someone who loves to write. It’s exciting to share work with people and to have conversations about writing with readers and students and other writers. I think that’s the biggest perk of being a writer, getting to chat with folks about it.
I write in a few different genres, having published three poetry books and two books of fiction. I am also a filmmaker and a playwright. Having so many oars in the water is both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, I always have something to turn if the well feels like it’s drying up, but often I have trouble deciding what to work on at the moment. What inevitably happens is I jump between projects until I have a good draft of something, then I focus with that project until it is done, whether it’s a collection of poems, or a longer fiction piece, or a play.
I always have plenty of ideas brewing, but I teach full time at a local university, so I often have to wait for some time off to really pile up the pages. I don’t teach in the summer anymore, so usually I get a lot done during those months. I was talking with students from a different university the other day about writing. I told them we all have stories to tell. I want students to believe that their experience is important, that we as readers can all identify with the truth that comes out of good writing. I want them to trust their own stories to carry that power. The trick is learning how best to tell them. I’m still working on that one.
Kevin Carey is Coordinator of Creative Writing at Salem State University. He has published a chapbook of fiction from Red Bird Chapbooks, The Beach People (2014) and three books of poetry, The One Fifteen to Penn Station (2012), Jesus Was a Homeboy (2016) which was an Honor book for the Paterson Literary Prize, and Set in Stone (2020) all from CavanKerry Press. His poems have twice appeared on The Writers Almanac on National Public Radio and on The Academy of American Poets Poem a Day. Kevin is also a playwright and a filmmaker. Among his films are two co-directed & co-produced documentary films about poets, including All That Lies Between Us and Unburying Malcolm Miller, which premiered at the Massachusetts Poetry Festival in 2017. Kevin has also co-authored a screenplay Peter’s Song which won Best Screenplay at the New Hampshire Film Festival in 2009. His latest stage play The Stand or Sal is Dead, a murder mystery comedy premiered at the Actor’s Studio in Newburyport, MA in June, 2018. His new crime novel, Murder in the Marsh, from Darkstroke Books, was released in October (2020). Kevincareywriter.com
Social Media Links:
@Kcarey127 (twitter)
https://www.facebook.com/kevin.carey.9843
Website: kevincareywriter.com
Book links:
Murder In The Marsh https://www.amazon.co.uk
Set In Stone https://cavankerrypress.org/product/set-in-stone/ /dp/B08GPKVCFL/
