DOWAGIAC — On Thursday, Elaine McKeough gave a small taste of her unpublished collection of short stories titled “Irish Fairytales for Grownups” to the Dowagiac Rotary Club.

McKeough, 82, of Dowagiac, is the mother of Rotarian Matthew Cripe. Cripe invited his mother to attend the Rotary meeting and present one of her short stories, “Tír na nÓg,” the Celtic word for the land of youth, to the group.

In her collection of “Irish Fairytales for Grownups,” she compiled eight different stories that featured the fellow folk, or “good people,” as she would call them in the storyline.

“Everything happens in every one of the stories today, and none of the stories are for children,” McKeough warned before reading the shortest of the eight. This specific story detailed an American couple in a bar in Ireland that learned the lesson of time.

McKeough, who has been writing since she can first remember, said she has been a longtime Irish fan, in the sense of Ireland and Notre Dame, as well.

Through writing her Irish fairytales, McKeough has spent time reading and researching about Ireland. She has also visited the country 11 times, as her late husband was Irish. She calculated that she has probably spent more than a year in the country if she added up all of the days in her visits.

During her reading of her short story, she even utilized an Irish accent to narrate the dialogue between the American and Irish characters.

McKeough, who was formerly an educator for more than 60 years, taught in a variety of capacities from kindergarten all the way up to senior citizens. She also taught at Southwestern Michigan College for 20 years and has spent most of her life involved in theater as an actor, director and writer.

Her writing stems beyond short stories. She has written memoirs about her life, poetry, a cook book, a grammar book, three full-length plays, several one-act plays and is working on two novels that are not yet finished. The last few years, McKeough has concentrated on her fictional works.

McKeough also considers herself to be a public speaker and said she has lectured in more than 17 countries and Canada.

Now, McKeough said she is thinking of writing fictional works surrounding a new genre she calls “Senior Rant.”

“Nobody really writes realistic fiction for senior citizens. I mean realistically,” McKeough said. “There are so many kinds of genres now, but I don’t really see that people think up literature for older people who aren’t dead.”

Following the reading of her short story, the audience of Rotarians applauded her work and asked her when her book would be published.

McKeough said getting published is a hard thing, and she would prefer to not self-publish. She said she is considering looking for an agent to help her find a publisher.

For now, she will keep writing her fiction stories and exploring what it means to tell them. 

“Nothing ever really bad or really good ever happens to a writer,” McKeough said. “You watch and listen because you like people and because you like story. Story is probably not only how the world progresses, but it’s how people grow up and learn.”