Description
Ross McCleary is a fiction writer, poet, and spoken-word performer from Edinburgh, Scotland. His work has been published in 404 Ink, Structo, Riddled with Arrows, Litro and a number of other places.
In 2019, the Scottish Book Trust awarded Ross a New Writer’s Award for Fiction. A novella, Portrait of the Artist as a Viable Alternative to Death, was published by Maudlin House in 2016. It was described as “yowlingly funny and wrenchingly tragic” by Rachel McCrum; “frequently reach[es] astonishing places” by Martin MacInnes; and “exhaustingly
beautiful” by Ross Sutherland.
Ross is also half of the Inky Fingers team, a monthly spoken-word open-mic night, and he organises, books, and writes events with Andrew Blair under the name Poetry As Fuck. Their work includes a Saboteur Award shortlisted show called The Ambassador’s Reception (co-produced with Interrobang), the Wikipedia Slam (which was featured on the Janice Forsythe show) and the Slaminals of Farthing Wood. He also produces Lies, Dreaming, which is a quarterly submission-driven poetry podcast with a theme.
www.rossmccleary.com | @strongmisgiving | LinkedIn
Endorsements for Endorse Me, You Cowards!
Chris McQueer: Ross McCleary is truly the original ideas man. His mind is a beautiful, terrifying, effervescent place I am simultaneously terrified and in awe of. I’ve never read anything like his writing, I’ve never saw anything like his performances and I have never met anyone quite like him.
Harry Josephine Giles: Ross McCleary is relentlessly experimental and relentlessly entertaining: he digs deep into the way words operate in the world and unearths nuggets of joy, at once appalled by the absurdity of the thing and willing to speak about it with heart and verve.