THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN

Against better judgement, some information about the author.

I’m R. D. Kerr, a journalist and writer interested in politics, society, culture, history and the everyday absurd.

My work is particularly drawn to ordinary places, overlooked stories and the things happening just beyond the obvious headline. I write about politics and institutions, communities, heritage, food, pubs, art and literature, and the peculiar gap between how the world is supposed to work and how people actually experience it.

My approach begins with observation: look closely, follow the evidence, listen to people and ask awkward questions — particularly when somebody is offering a suspiciously simple answer to a complicated problem.

Humour often finds its way in too, especially when politics, bureaucracy or everyday life becomes more absurd than anything a satirist might reasonably invent.

Alongside journalism, I write essays, criticism, poetry and fiction.

I collect notebooks, old books, photographs and strange pieces of information nobody else seems particularly interested in reading. Most begin as curiosities scribbled in the margin of something else.

They usually become useful eventually.

Email: rdkerr.author@gmail.com
Signal: @rdkerr63

Politics, society and human-interest stories sit alongside history, heritage, culture, food and the places we live.

I’m particularly interested in stories where the larger world collides with ordinary life.

Observation first. Evidence next. Then the awkward question.

I look for the detail that changes a story, the contradiction that deserves examining and, occasionally, the joke everyone else walked past.

I also write poetry, short fiction and longer-form work, with recurring interests in history, place, memory and people.

Different forms, perhaps, but usually the same curiosity behind them.