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Keith was born in Glasgow, Scotland and spent his early working life in community arts,
firstly as a drama worker in Newarthill, then as supervisor of the Maryhill Arts Centre and
finally as Coordinator of the Easterhouse Arts Project which received major funding from the
Glasgow City Council as part of the 1990 European City of Culture celebrations.
He first came to Australia in 1988, backpacking around the country and finally settled in
Melbourne. He returned to Glasgow to work in Easterhouse for a period before becoming a
permanent Australian resident.
Keith was interested in science fiction at an early age, reading as much as he could find,
especially Asimov, Niven and Dick. He remembers what first turned him on to science fiction.
'I must have been about 8 or 9 and I read in a junior encyclopedia that the sun would one
day go nova and planet Earth would be destroyed. The book pointed out that this wouldn't
happen for billions of years, but that didn't mean much to a child. I was inconsolable for days.
And then I found a science fiction book and I realised that humanity could survive the death
of the sun if we escaped to other planets. SF gave me a message of hope and it's that
message which still fires my imagination today - that humanity will survive, however altered.'
On emigrating to Melbourne, Keith secured a job in the public service, but he quickly got
involved in the local speculative fiction scene, meeting Dirk Strasser at a TAFE course on SF
and Fantasy writing.
firstly as a drama worker in Newarthill, then as supervisor of the Maryhill Arts Centre and
finally as Coordinator of the Easterhouse Arts Project which received major funding from the
Glasgow City Council as part of the 1990 European City of Culture celebrations.
He first came to Australia in 1988, backpacking around the country and finally settled in
Melbourne. He returned to Glasgow to work in Easterhouse for a period before becoming a
permanent Australian resident.
Keith was interested in science fiction at an early age, reading as much as he could find,
especially Asimov, Niven and Dick. He remembers what first turned him on to science fiction.
'I must have been about 8 or 9 and I read in a junior encyclopedia that the sun would one
day go nova and planet Earth would be destroyed. The book pointed out that this wouldn't
happen for billions of years, but that didn't mean much to a child. I was inconsolable for days.
And then I found a science fiction book and I realised that humanity could survive the death
of the sun if we escaped to other planets. SF gave me a message of hope and it's that
message which still fires my imagination today - that humanity will survive, however altered.'
On emigrating to Melbourne, Keith secured a job in the public service, but he quickly got
involved in the local speculative fiction scene, meeting Dirk Strasser at a TAFE course on SF
and Fantasy writing.
'Dirk told me about Aurealis, and I wanted to get involved, so I became a slush pile reader and later submissions manager for the mag. Then in
1999, Dirk said they wanted to sell the magazine as a going concern. I was worried about what would become of it. Australian markets at that time
were few and far between. Altair had folded, Eidolon was on hiatus and Orb moved to an annual anthology. There was no ASIM or Agog! in those
days. So I talked to Sara Creasy, who was the proof reader for the mag, and Trudi Canavan, who handled the art side at the time. They agreed
to stay on if I made a bid to take over the mag. I couldn't afford to buy it, but I put together a business plan and talked to Dirk and Stephen
Higgins, offering to run the mag for them and leave them free to do other things. Luckily they agreed, and the rest is history, but I couldn't have
done it without Sara and Trudi.'
Keith ran the magazine from 2001 to the end of 2004. He was also organising convenor of the Aurealis Awards for a number of years before they
came under the auspices of Fantastic Queensland. During that time he also wrote a SF Novel, Horizon, which is currently under consideration,
and had two short stories published. He's now working on a multi-book space opera called The Way of The Kresh .
Keith is a member of SuperNOVA the Melbourne-based speculative fiction writers' group. In 2006, he and fellow SuperNOVA writer Andrew
Macrae launched coeur de lion, a speculative fiction publishing imprint, and with it their first anthology, c0ck, a collection of original stories
interrogating masculinity within a speculative fiction framework. In October 2007, coeur de lion published Rynemonn, the long awaited
conclusion to the Tom Rynosseros stories from Terry Dowling who won the Peter MacNamara Award that year.
Keith returned to working for Aurealis Magazine as a science fiction and horror reviewer for Aurealis Magazine issues #40 - 44. But he also
continued publishing with coeur de lion and in November 2009, X6 - anovellanthology was released featuring all new novellas by six of the most
exciting speculative fiction authors working in Australia today, including Margo Lanagan, winner of the World Fantasy Award. Keith also produces
and hosts the monthly Terra Incognita Australian Speculative Fiction Podcast which features the best Australian speculative fiction read by the
authors who created it. He now lives in Sydney with his partner Nicola, his pet laptop and way too many books.
biography
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