Adrian McKinty
Adrian McKinty
Adrian McKinty is an Irish crime novelist who has won the Ned Kelly Award and been shortlisted for the Edgar Award, Dagger Award, Anthony Award, Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award and the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière. He was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland in 1968 and grew up in Victoria Council Estate, Carrickfergus, County Antrim. He read law at the University of Warwick and politics and philosophy at the University of Oxford. He moved to...
NationalityIrish
ProfessionNovelist
CountryIreland
certain daughters fathers guthrie recite ride sing song time turned wandering woody
Irish fathers still have certain responsibilities, and by the time my two daughters turned seven, they could swim, ride a bike, sing at least one part of a Woody Guthrie song, and recite all of W. B. Yeats's 'The Song of Wandering Aengus.'
england secondary
After secondary school, the big thing to do was apply for uni in England or Scotland and then just stay there.
noir
Crime fiction, especially noir and hardboiled, is the literature of the proletariat.
came few longer proper stories
I had a few stories and longer pieces published, but my first proper novel came in 2003, called 'Dead I Well May Be.'
followed met studied
I studied law at Warwick University, then philosophy at Oxford. I met my wife Leah there. She is American, so I followed her to New York.
major man school
I used to get a lift to school every day with a man who was a major in the British Army.
dragged rover
I was knocked down and dragged by a police Land Rover in a hit-and-run.
believer slowly stuff throw tinker word words
I've never been a believer in the word-count thing. I write slowly and tinker with the words and the word order, and I throw a lot of stuff out.
october
The winters in Denver are brutal; it snows from the end of October to April.
asked kids teaching
We were living in Denver, Colorado, and I was teaching high school. I asked the kids to write a short story, so I thought I should write some myself.
likes specific
A specific editor in a specific place likes the book, and you're in. A different editor on a different day goes, 'Oh, this isn't for me', or doesn't even look at it, and that's it.
became edward george high invented known less morris william work
Building on the work of George Macdonald, William Morris and Edward Plunkett, what became known as high fantasy was more or less invented by J. R. R. Tolkien.
cafe desk easier good miserable ride sit winter work
I find it easier to write in the winter in Melbourne. When the weather is good you want to go out for a walk, ride a bike, go to a cafe or something. When it's raining, when it's a miserable day, I just sit down at my desk and get some work done.
eccentric funny gone jobs meeting plan saying teacher worker wrote york
I had gone to New York with no plan at all. I did a lot of jobs - barman, teacher, security guard, postman and construction worker - and I was meeting many eccentric characters, and they were saying funny things, which I always wrote down.