Debut Fiction: Brendan Mac Evilly and Tom O’Connell

Tom is from Galway City, and holds degrees in English and Law from the University of Galway. Lichtenberg, his dystopian debut novel, was selected as one of the twelve winners of the Irish Writers Centre’s Novel Fair in 2023, and published by Temple Dark Books in 2025. The novel draws on his academic background as it explores themes of language – its ability to distort perception, influence will and create ideology. He similarly weaves his legal experience into the story, lending realism to his worldbuilding and the social structure of Lichtenberg’s unforgiving world. He is currently writing the sequel in contribution to a PhD in Dystopian Literature.

Brendan is the author of the novel Deep Burn (Marrowbone Books 2025) and At Swim: A Book About the Sea (Collins Press 2016). His fiction and non-fiction has appeared in Winter Papers, The Stinging Fly, Channel, the Honest Ulsterman, the Guardian, the Irish Times, and Sunday Times among other outlets. He is the director/editor of Holy Show, an annual arts journal and production company, and is the current Emerging Curator in Development at Kilkenny Arts Office.