Evelyn Conlon is an Irish novelist and short story writer. An unsentimental thinker, her work is suffused with originality and wit. Born in Co. Monaghan, she is now resident in Dublin and has a deep interest in Australia where she lived in the early 1970s.

An elected member of Aosdána, the Irish association which honours distinguished artistic work, she has been writer-in-residence in colleges in many countries and at University College Dublin.

A conscientious researcher, her 2010 talks in Australian Universities addressed the topic ‘Corridors of Truth, what Fiction adds to History’.

Her novel, Skin of Dreams, which was shortlisted for Irish Novel of the year, dealt with capital punishment, and brought her on to Death Row in the United States.

Her earlier novels Stars in the Daytime and A Glassful of Letters deal variously with social and political dilemmas, as well as the lives, loves and hates of her characters.

She has published three collections of short stories, My Head is Opening, Taking Scarlet as a Real Colour, the title story of which was performed at the Edinburgh Theatre Festival, and Telling - New and Selected Short Stories. These have been widely anthologised and translated.