Joel McKerrow

Where were you born?

On Dharawal Country, at Wollongong hospital in NSW.

What other jobs have you had?

I started out pushing trolleys across uneven carparks as a teenager, but then spent many years as a youth worker and then university lecturer focused on youth work and the worldview formation of Young People. 

What themes are recurring in your work?

A lot of my poetry work revolves around the intersection of creativity and self-growth. I tend to write a lot of inspirational pieces that came out of times in my own journey when I needed to be inspired and hence transfer into inspiring others in their journey. I also write a lot about social issues and our place within this world.

My fiction writing tends to do the same, but in a very different way. I love writing humorous stories that make us think about how we see each other and our own lives. At their surface they might be about monster-hunting or aliens. But thematically they reveal how we make monsters out of that which we don’t understand.

What have been the highlights of your career?

There is nothing much better than performing poetry, backed by musicians, to thousands upon thousands of people at events all over the world. So some of my highlights would be festivals in The Netherlands and in the UK and venues like the Sydney Opera House, the Atheneum and Forum theatres, the Metropolis in Montreal, the Nuyorican and Bowery in New York City and representing Australia at the Individual World Poetry Slam Championships in the US.

One of my all-time highlights was Keynote speaking and performing at Nashville’s Schermerhorn Symphony Centre on the STORY GATHERING stage alongside Krista Monson (Cirque Du Soleil Artistic Director) and Linda Woolverton (Disney writer of the Lion King, Beauty and the Beast and Maleficent).

One of my highlights has also been the amount of literary festivals I have been invited to speak/perform at. Festivals like Somerset Storyfest, Little Scribe, Once Upon A Festival, Storyfest OutWest, Whitsunday Youth Voices, Emerging Writers Festival, Write Around the Murray, Cairns Tropical Writers Festival, Capricorn Coast Writers Festival and many more.

I have been a performance poet for a long time but have also been working on FICTION writing A LOT the last five years and so to get my first publishing contract for URBAN LEGEND HUNTERS with Larrikin House publishers has also been a massive highlight!

However, more significant than all that, would be that I have got to teach the creative process to over 70 000 students throughout the world and seeing so many of them come alive in their creativity. A treasured memory is the bullied autistic boy who had never shared anything in class ever, but stood up after a week of workshops and shared an entire poem about himself and his autism to a stunned class and equally stunned teachers.

Where have your works been published?

Larrikin House, Mindfood Magazine, Going Down Swinging Literary Journal, Acorn Press, UNOH Publications, The Poatina Tree Publishing, Relevant Magazine, Soul-Tread magazine.

What are you passionate about?

I love seeing words and creativity change lives. There is nothing I am more passionate about than this. I have had the honor of coming alongside tens of thousands of young people in their journey and seen them transform simply through the power of naming their own story and creating something out of that story. 

Haven't I seen you before?

You may not have seen me, but here is where you can see/hear me now…

• This live video of my poetry called THIS poem in collaboration with an amazing children’s disability crew.
• This TEDX talk.
• This plea to take care of our earth called ONE PLANET
• This is my SPOTIFY for you to listen to.