About
Introducing Ray…
Apart from times overseas, Ray Keipert lived all his life in various Sydney suburbs prior to retiring north with his wife, Léonie in 2013. His career experience was in high school teaching, Commonwealth public service administration and lastly, as a TAFE teacher of Communications / examinations supervisor.
Ray has always been keen on creative writing but earlier attempts produced nothing lasting. While in the workforce, his main outlet for interest in this area was in composing scenarios for his students to analyse. However, after joining the Myall University of the Third Age Writers’ group, Ray found the opportunity to produce both short stories and poems, a source of great inspiration and pleasure. As part of this group, he contributed to and helped publish their 2020 book, ‘Write by the River.’ A number of his short stories have received awards in literary competitions.
In 2020 Ray co-published an edition of 20 short stories, ‘Life’s Winners...and a Few Losers.’ As well as writing, he is enrolled in other U3A courses of special interest. Who knows, these may provide the background for future stories.
Ray and Léonie are both well-involved in their local Baptist Church, plus the lives of their adult children and grandchildren.
Monet’s former home in Giverny
The day I cased the joint
You may be intrigued to read that, to research how a thief would go about stealing an art treasure from Claude Monet’s former home in Giverny, west of Paris, my wife and I paid the location a visit in 2018 and deduced the downstairs dining room was the ideal setting, with the targeted treasure hung next to the fireplace. Fear not, dear reader – the only theft I engage in is in my stories! Please check out ‘Twenty-Five Seconds’ and ‘Chasing Memories’ in Five in the Quiver, for all the details.
How I write
To set the scene, I am often fond of drilling down into history or mining recent events known to many. The plot is then constructed around, for example well-known past catastrophes such as the World War One Gallipoli Campaign or the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami. Or it features a real-life escape to the west from what was then Communist East Berlin, with only the date and the characters changed. In one story in my second book, an actual slave-like situation in present-day Pakistan is detailed, with acknowledgement given to those doing their best to remedy the injustice. The description in the plot is very close to reality.