Born in Liverpool in 1959, John McKeown graduated from John Moore’s University in 1987 with an Honours Degree in English and History. He lived in Prague for several years as a teacher and freelance journalist before moving to Ireland in 2000, where he was a columnist for the Irish Examiner, and arts feature writer for the Irish Times. He was theatre critic for the Irish Daily Mail from 2006 to 2008 and is currently reviewing theatre for the Irish Independent and raising his daughter Julia. He lives and writes in Dun Laoghaire, County Dublin.

His poems have appeared in Orbis, The Eildon Tree, Dreamcatcher, Aerings, Earth Love, Envoi, Borderlines, The London Magazine, and Irish-based journals Cyphers, The Shop, and Southword. He was winner of the Start Chapbook Prize (Ireland) in 2004 for his cycle of poems Looking Toward Inis Oírr.