The suburban home setting in Freeport seems a long way from the small farmlands of the Irish midlands. Although former Garden City Schools employee Tom Phelan now lives thousands of miles away from the country he was born and raised in, he is set to release his fifth novel depicting life in his old Irish homeland.
Phelan is set to read from his collection of works on Monday, June 17 at 7 p.m. at the Summer Gazebo Readings on Schoolhouse Green in Oceanside. Though he has been writing for many years before his work was published, his first novel was released in April 1998 when a Dublin publisher accepted In the Season of the Daisies. A decade and a half later, the Freeport native is currently finishing up his fifth novel, Lies, which is set for release in 2014.
“Before any of my work got published, I wrote a 900-page book that was never published,” said Phelan. “Although it was never published, it helped me find my voice and get down to the art of writing.”
Since penning the 900-page tome that started his writing career, Phelan has had four other novels published including In the Season of the Daisies, The Canal Bridge, Iscariot, and Derrycloney, all of which take place in his native land of Ireland. His fifth novel, Lies, is the tale of two returned emigrants and their effect on the Irish village they call home.
The writing process usually takes Phelan about two years to complete but the work of a writer is never done.
“I’m forever reading,” said Phelan.
