Adrian Michael Kelly

Writer + Coach

Available Summer 2026!

Maybe It’s Me

For most of his adult life, Adrian Michael Kelly succeeded in spite of himself, if he succeeded at all. Failure was his speciality–serial, sometimes comic but also epic failure. Born to a gambling-addicted, compulsively spending mother who left when he was five, and raised by his dad, a haunted and often violent, harddrinking Scot, Kelly learned failure early, and learned it remarkably well: how to be small, how to be safe, how to be self-defeating. By the age of thirty, he was larking around abroad, trying (and failing) to write like his literary heroes while mired in bad relationships and dead-end work.

On a grey October morning in 1999, thunderously hungover and sick to death of himself, he boarded a train in Zurich bound for Bergamo and entered the initial, terrifying stages of a months-long and near-total breakdown, less a psychological than spiritual emergency–full-bore and loud.

Maybe It’s Me recounts what led up to that emergency as well as its aftermath, when Kelly came back to Canada in the hopes of moving on with his life. For a while, he did just that: published his first novel, earned a PhD, and met his future wife. In no way, however, was failure done with him. At the very summit of his hardwon achievements, life and his own folly brought him low again–dangerously low. Chronically unemployed, crippled by hideous back pain, and driven to despair by the mother of all writer’s block, he was divorced and nearly homeless at the age of forty-seven. But along with how to fail, Kelly knew how not to quit, and set about the process–long and difficult–of building a consequential, good-enough life. It involved unusual cheese, a shaman and maverick shrinks, a rainbow feather duster, and charitable mermaids.

Free of self-pity and always beautifully told, Maybe It’s Me is for everyone who gets in their own way, everyone who trips and falls down the stairs of themselves–and can still have a laugh about it.

Testimonials

“The way Kelly wields (and welds together) words is astounding … When your brain finally clicks into Kelly’s rhythm, Ambassador accomplishes something rare: it feels fresh, a brand-new mode of storytelling; it rearticulates your way of seeing the world, reprograms your brain, gets your feet tapping to a different beat. And this is what makes it a book worth slowing down for.”

Canadian Notes & Queries

"Adrian enlivened my writing and pushed me to challenge some of the taken-for-granted ideas embedded in my work. I would not hesitate to work with him again."

Diane Crocker, Professor of Sociology & Criminology, Saint Mary's University

As academics, we are provided many opportunities to share our expertise and sometimes it is difficult to know how to prioritize our commitments. By asking simple, yet crucial questions, Adrian has helped me understand my professional priorities, which has freed up energy to do more of what is important to me. He also has introduced me to valuable tools that have enabled me to set my research goals and structure my writing practice not only over the day, but over the month and the year. Most importantly, Adrian has invited me to bring my whole self to the writing process and has guided me to make decisions and establish habits that will not only sustain me as a writer but as a person--both at and away from my desk.