In conversation: William Keohane with Jack Thompson

Another very special pre-launch event at The Waves! Join us on the cusp of the publication of William Keohane’s Out There — an intimate exploration of transformation from marvellous independent publishing house & Other Stories. 

How do you make a life in an unlivable present, when the path to change is impossibly slow?

Gender transition doesn’t happen in a clinic, nor does it unfold in a straight line. For William Keohane, it is a journey mapped across words, names, and the Irish landscape. As Will navigates the endless waiting for referrals, appointments, hormones, and surgery, he compassionately charts the many people and places that have shaped his life — both with their love and their willingness to change alongside him. At once sparkling and meditative, with prose of undeniable eddying force, Out There is a universal reflection on transformation and becoming, which asks just how much has to change before we’re seen as who we are.

‘Essential reading’ –Gavin McCrea

‘A beautiful and deeply moving book on seeing and being seen’ —Elizabeth Lovatt

Join us at The Waves just ahead of the book’s official publication. Pre-release books will be on hand to get signed. The author will be in conversation with Jack Thompson, publisher of another stellar independent publishing house, Cipher Press. 

Free but space is always limited and fills fast, so please do save a spot here. 

William Keohane is a writer from Limerick. His essays have been published in The Stinging Fly, The Dublin Review, and 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.

Jack Thompson is publisher and commissioning editor at Cipher Press, an independent publishing house launched to amplify the work of queer and trans writers.