Welcome to this long-overdue update.

Ordinary Average Thoughts started out in February 2011 as my personal blog, but then morphed into the online home for my poetry, and then into my website.

From 2015 to 2018, I endeavored to write and post a new poem every day, in addition to the daily ‘love notes’ to the days of the week I began writing and posting back in October 2013. Writer’s block slowed the flow of new poems, but I have kept going with the love notes—which I have now been doing for almost 12 years.

So, to borrow a phrase from the UK magazine Q, who the hell does Kevin J. O’Conner think he is?

I am a poet. From 2014 to 2019, I published twelve full-length collections of my poetry, the last collection being Wishes sometimes have consequences. I have also been published in several issues of Spindrift, two editions of The Poetry Marathon Anthology, an issue of Raven Chronicles, and the Voices That Matter anthology. In October 2018, I also published my first self-produced chapbook, Interval. On 15 December 2023, I decided to delete my print catalogue (returns are expensive!).

I am an editor, though now retired. I started out as a translator (Japanese to English), but that necessarily involved a lot of editing, especially when the role I was in meant I was the only one available to edit my work. Over the years I have attempted to move into other fields—audio engineering in the mid 1990s, and graphic design in 2009—but somehow have always come back to editing or editorial roles. From 2013 to late 2024, I worked on several projects for I-TECH (International Training and Education Center for Health), all of which were related to global health programs and issues. Unfortunately, that came to an end when USAID funding was slashed.

I am a photographer. Since I was a kid, I have used a variety of film/camera formats—126, 110, 35 mm, 120, Polaroid (peel-apart, Spectra, SX-70, 600), and digital.

I am an occasional graphic designer. Unfortunately, I graduated from my chosen graphic design program right after the economy tanked in 2008. That, combined with my total lack of interest in web/UI/UX design, scuttled my prospects for paying work in the field. Fortunately, I was able to put my skills to work producing my own books, with the occasional project done for others (e.g., the cover art to Kim Nathan’s ebook Dreaming Montana). Some examples of my work (a bit out of date) can be found at https://www.behance.net/alarmcatdesign.

I am an occasional artist. I have had a couple of pieces exhibited in galleries (in 1997 or 1998, and in 2002), but mostly painting serves as an outlet for nonverbal expression (could that sound any more pretentious?). From November 2018 until early 2020, I went through a digital sketching/painting phase. I haven’t done anything for a while, but I have a few blank canvases and some inks and paints at the ready for when the urge strikes.

I am an occasional composer and frequent maker of sounds. I used to fiddle around on the family piano when I was a kid, and briefly tried teaching myself to play sax using my dad’s saxophone, but it was the synthesizer that sparked my interest (thanks largely to Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album). In December 1988, I finally bought a synthesizer; that led to a decade of creating my own music (and noise), and releasing several DIY cassettes under the names Tinty Music and Observe Zero. Most of my musical equipment was stolen in a burglary in 1998, ending that particular phase of my life; after that, I created a few new pieces here and there by editing material (both existing and new) on my computer. These days, I am using a Eurorack modular system and the occasional analogue synth to make sounds. You can listen to (and purchase) much of the material I have released (so far) on the Bandcamp website at https://tintymusic.bandcamp.com/.

Regardless of the venue or medium, we all have our own voice; I figure mine is as worthy of being heard as anyone else’s. Whenever I have doubts of the validity of my creative pursuits, I remind myself of this.

(Updated 23 May 2025)