Out There - by William Keohane (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

At once a coming-of-age story and a coming-of-artistry narrative, Out There is a striking individual history that is alive with community, and told with the kind of clarity, precision, generosity and hope that belies the youth of the teller.

The memoir runs across differing landscapes and bodies of water as both body and environment fluctuate and change. Moving from Will's childhood, to teenage years and the beginning of gender transition, into early adulthood, Out There is a journey through the process of becoming recognised in the world as a man, and assured as a writer. Through friendship, love and loss, as well as bodily changes, hormonal and surgical, this book seeks to address the kinds of transition we all experience. Though the narrative is Will's, it is not one of loneliness - transition doesn't happen in isolation - but one full of friends and family, doctors and nurses. While rejection does occur, supportive relationships prove not just important but fundamental.

About the Author

William Keohane is a writer from Limerick. His essays have been published in The Stinging Fly, The Dublin Review, and British GQ Magazine, among others. Boxing Day, a poetry performance, toured internationally and was nominated for an award at the Dublin Fringe Festival. In 2021, he was longlisted for Canongate's Nan Shepherd Prize for Nature Writing, received a Literature Bursary Award from the Arts Council of Ireland, and was one of ten poets selected for the Poetry Ireland Introductions series. William holds an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Limerick, and is currently completing a PhD in poetry at the Seamus Heaney Centre in Queen's University Belfast.