Evelyn Conlon (born 1952) is an Irish novelist, short story writer, and essayist. Over the course of her career, Conlon has published dozens of novels, short stories, and essays. Her 2003 novel, ''Skin of Dreams'', was shortlisted for Irish Novel of the Year. Conlon is a member of

Aosdána Aosdána ( , ; from , 'people of the arts') is an Irish association or academy of artists, each of whom must have produced a distinguished body of work of genuine originality. It was created in 1981 by the country's Arts Council on the initiati ...

and has been appointed a writer-in-residence at educational institutions around the world, including the

University College Dublin University College Dublin (), commonly referred to as UCD, is a public research university in Dublin, Ireland, and a collegiate university, member institution of the National University of Ireland. With 38,417 students, it is Ireland's largest ...

, the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota Twin Cities (historically known as University of Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint ...

, and Mishkanot Sha’anamin, Jerusalem. She is an adjunct professor in the creative writing MFA program at Carlow University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A member of Irishwomen United, Conlon was a founding member of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre in 1979.

Biography

Conlon was born in Rockcorry,

County Monaghan County Monaghan ( ; ) is a Counties of Ireland, county in Ireland. It is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Ulster and is part of Border Region, Border strategic planning area of the Northern and Western Region. It is named after the town ...

, where she spent her childhood. She was educated at St. Patrick's College in Maynooth and briefly attended

. At the age of 19, Conlon went to Australia by ship in 1972 and worked at various jobs around the country. When she returned to Ireland by bus overland in 1975, she gave birth to her first child, returned to education at

Maynooth College St Patrick's Pontifical University, Maynooth (), is a pontifical Catholic university in the town of Maynooth near Dublin, Ireland. The college and national seminary on its grounds are often referred to as Maynooth College. The college was of ...

, where she also started a child care centre (creche). While earning her degree, she gave birth to her second child and separated from her husband. Conlon resides in

Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...

with her partner Fintan Vallely, a musician, author, and ethnomusicologist.

Writing

Conlon said that she developed a passion to "be a novelist before heknew what a novel was." She received her first accolade for writing when she won the European Schools Day essay competition at the age of 17 and published her first piece of writing the same year in ''New Irish Writing'' at The Irish Press. Some of Conlon’s fictional work explores sociopolitical issues such as capital punishment, feminism, and the plight of refugees. In observing the overlap between her writing and political advocacy, Conlon has noted, "I don’t think you can be a ‘feminist’ writer, I think you’re a writer. I am a writer who is a feminist. And, my feminist consciousness affects the sort of things I enjoy writing about." Conlon has also been described as a "politically engaged writer hocasts a sometimes acerbic eye on the female experience in the Ireland of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century".

Selected works

Novels

* ''Stars in the Daytime'' (1989) * ''A Glassful of Letters'' (1998) * ''Skin of Dreams'' (2003) * ''Not the Same Sky'' (2013)

Short story collections

* ''My Head is Opening'' (1987) * ''Taking Scarlet as a Real Colour'' (1993) * ''An Cloigeann is a Luach - What Worth the Head : County Limerick Anthology '' (1998) * ''Telling'' (2000) * ''Cutting the Night in Two'' – with Hans-Christian Oeser (2001) * ''Later On: The Monaghan Bombing Memorial Anthology '' (2004)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Conlon, Evelyn 20th-century Irish women writers 21st-century Irish women writers 1952 births 20th-century Irish short story writers 21st-century Irish short story writers Living people Alumni of University College Dublin Writers from County Monaghan Irish women short story writers