Author Archives: Alan McCormick Writing

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About Alan McCormick Writing

Alan McCormick lives with his family in Wicklow. He’s a Trustee and former writer in residence for InterAct Stroke Support, a charity employing actors to read fiction and poetry to stroke patients. His writing has won prizes and been widely performed and published, including recently in The Stinging Fly, Banshee, The Lonely Crowd, Southword, Sonder and Exacting Clam magazines, and previously in Salt’s Best British Short Stories, A Wild and Precious Life – A Recovery Anthology, Modern Nature Anthology – Responses to Derek Jarman’s Modern Nature, The Poetry Bus, The Sunday Express Magazine, The Bridport and Fish Prize Anthologies, Popshot, Litro and Confingo; and online at Epoque Press, Words for the Wild, 3:AM Magazine, Culture Matters, Dead Drunk Dublin, Mono, Fictive Dream, The Quietus and Found Polaroids. His story ‘Firestarter’ came second in the 2022 Francis MacManus RTE Short Story Competition and ‘Boys on Film’ came second in The 2023 Plaza Prizes Sudden Fiction competition. DOGSBODIES and SCUMSTERS , his collection of short stories with flash shorts inspired by Jonny Voss’s pictures, was published by Roast Books and long-listed for the Edge Hill Prize. Alan and Jonny also collaborate on illustrated shorts known as Scumsters – see more at Deaddrunkdublin.com and Scumsters.blogspot

KICKER GIRL

Now lookee here, girl, what do you call that mess on the wall? Dunno. It’s a scribble, isn’t it? And a scribble don’t belong on the wall, it belongs on paper. Am I right or am I wrong? Yep, s’pose … Continue reading

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CANCER BOB

  CANCER BOB AND THE YOYO Bob with the Cancer, a charred renegade cowboy scout was puffing and lolloping along on his half-assed, half-blind donkey when he passed two unlikely lads cavorting on the skirted hem of a daisy prairie. … Continue reading

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DOGSBODY

DOGSBODY Does the dog wag the tail or the tail wag the dog? Such questions kept entering Arnold’s mind of late.             It started with a heightened sense of smell. Nose up, with a slow turn of the head to … Continue reading

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GOAT KILLS SNAKE

GOAT KILLS SNAKE Pablo the goat came over all Diablo when a slimy snake slithered under his hoof. ‘Cotton-picking son of a slitherer!’ yelled Pablo, who up until now had never uttered a word in his life. ‘Rattle’ rattled the … Continue reading

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THE SACRED ELEPHANT

  At the Sacred Elephant Thai restaurant in a small Middlesex town near Heathrow, four people take their regular seats at a corner table by the window. It’s an early Saturday evening in December and the restaurant is half full. … Continue reading

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