His short stories have appeared in the anthologies Phoenix: Irish Short Stories 1998, edited by David Marcus; Dogs Shot From Cannons and The Attic, both Trinity College publications; twice in the monthly Hennessy Cognac ‘New Irish Writing’ page in The Sunday Tribune, edited by Ciaran Carty; and in ‘New Writing’ in Books Ireland, edited by Kevin Kiely. He was nominated for a Hennessy Literary Award for ‘Best Emerging Fiction’ in 1998 and 2000, and won a Special Merit Hennessy Award in 2000, and was also awarded a Bursary in Literature by Dublin Corporation. He has been awarded a six month residency in a Writer’s Studio by Temple Bar Properties. He was recently awarded a Bursary in Literature from the Arts Council of Ireland, and has previously received an Artflight and a Travel Bursary from the same organisation.
He has completed the M Phil in Creative Writing at Trinity College, Dublin, gaining a distinction from external examiner, Professor Douglas Dunn. While at Trinity he won the Alumnus Award for the best critical essay published in Alumnus, an annual journal of work by Trinity postgraduates of all disciplines. His academic papers have also appeared in the volume New Voices in Irish Criticism 3, and the Irish Studies Review.
He has given creative writing workshops in Dublin Corporation Libraries and lectured on contemporary Irish fiction in the Irish Writers’ Centre. For the past three years he has been giving courses in creative writing for the Vocational Education Committee, at Rathmines Senior College. In summer 2005, he will be teaching two courses, in Creative Writing and Irish Literature, at the summer programme of Franklin College, Lugano, Switzerland.
His first novel, The Myth of Exile and Return, was published by Silenzio Press last year, and was nominated for the Hughes & Hughes/Sunday Independent Irish Novel of the Year Award. He is represented by the Jonathan Williams Literary Agency. More stories and another novel are on the way.