Kirjahaku

A collection of sixteen shorts and four poems with a link. The connection being that all twenty pieces are titles of songs by Australian Singer/Songwriter, Film Scorer, Actor and Author, Paul Kelly. I hit on the idea after finishing "Violet Hiccup", my second novel, and thought it might be a good writing exercise. They (the shorts, not the poems) are also featured on mcstorytellers.com, author Brendan Gisby's excellent Scots-connected short story website. If you are unfamiliar with Paul Kelly's vast output of clever songs, I urge you to investigate. He's not an easy man to categorize, but all the easier to listen to for that reason. Incidentally, Paul was recently made a Doctor of Arts by his home state university, South Australia. Yet another string to his bow. A twofold reason for this collection, the first being I want people to read my stuff and the other, more important perhaps, I want people to investigate the songs of Paul Kelly.

The limerick is thought to take its name from the City of Limerick in Eire. It became popular in the mid-nineteenth century after the London-born poet Edward Lear published his Book of Nonsense. So it's a type of poem named after an Irish city and it was first popularised by an Englishman. But what do you call a limerick that's been written by a Scotsman? Why, a McLIMERICK, of course COONT THUM THIRTEEN is a collection of more than 100 McLimericks. They've all been penned by the Ayrshire writer and poet Angus Shoor Caan as a follow-up to his twelve earlier collections, which together amount to well over 1,000 published McLimericks. In true Scots fashion, the McLimericks in all thirteen collections are witty, irreverent and sometimes bawdy. In fact, we at McStorytellers, the website dedicated to showcasing the work of Scottish-connected short story writers, were so tickled by them that we rushed to publish them. We hope you'll be tickled by them as well. So please delve into COONT THUM THIRTEEN. And if you like what you read go grab copies of those earlier collections.