Chris McQueer

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Chris McQueer
Chris McQueer EIBF 2025.jpg
McQueer at the 2025 Edinburgh International Book Festival
BornChris McQueer
Glasgow, Scotland
OccupationWriter, spoken word performer
Language Scots, English
Nationality Scottish
Education City of Glasgow College
Period2017–present
Genre Dark comedy, Surreal humour, short stories

Chris McQueer is a Scottish writer and spoken art performer. With extensive use of the Scots language, his writings are dark comedy and surreal humour. He is best known for his two published collections of short stories Hings and HWFG.

Contents

Background

McQueer was brought up in the East End of Glasgow. He worked in a sports shop and as a crime scene cleaner before becoming a full-time writer. [1] [2] He supports Celtic F.C. [3]

Writing career

He began his writing career by self-publishing short stories on Twitter. His first book collection, Hings, was published in 2017 and was compiled from his Twitter stories. It won Best Short Story Collection at the 2018 Saboteur Awards. [1]

The success of Hings allowed McQueer to give up his job to write full time. It was followed by 2018's HWFG (which stands for Here We Fucking Go), and was McQueer's first collection of stories to be written specifically for book publication. After being dissatisfied with his initial efforts, which he felt too closely resembled the style of Hings, he consciously adopted a darker tone. He has subsequently begun work on his first novel. McQueer also gives regular spoken word performances of his stories. [4] [1]

In 2019, some of the stories from Hings were adapted as a three-part series of short films for BBC iPlayer, Chris McQueer's Hings. McQueer himself appears as the series' narrator. [5] [6]

Writing style

McQueer's work, which is written in naturalistic Glaswegian Scots and English, has a darkly humorous style that has been compared to that of Limmy and Irvine Welsh. Scottish actor Martin Compston described McQueer as "like Charlie Brooker on Buckfast". [1]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Brooks, Libby (25 January 2019). "'Like Charlie Brooker on Buckfast': the caustic world of Chris McQueer". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 8 July 2019.
  2. ↑ Burnside, Anna (27 July 2017). "Some Hings were meant to be as Scots social media star Chris McQueer pens book". Daily Record. Retrieved 3 February 2023.
  3. ↑ https://celticfc.com/news/15445
  4. ↑ Crae, Ross (10 November 2018). "Author Chris McQueer on why difficult second book HWFG isn't just more Hings". The Sunday Post. Glasgow. Retrieved 8 July 2019.
  5. ↑ "'It still doesnae feel real': Author's stories made into short films for BBC". Evening Times. Glasgow. 29 April 2019. Retrieved 8 July 2019.
  6. ↑ "BBC Scotland – Chris McQueer's Hings". BBC. Retrieved 8 July 2019.
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