Novelist Tom Phelan has been chosen as a Christopher Isherwood Foundation Fellow for 2008, one of only five novelists selected.

The main purpose of the foundation is to contribute significantly to the flourishing of American letters by awarding grants to published novelists.

Tom Phelan is the author of many critically acclaimed novels, including his most recent, The Canal Bridge, praised by the Irish Independent newspaper as "another First World War masterpiece...an ambitious, accomplished and deeply moving contribution to Ireland's formidable corpus of fiction about the Great War."

Phelan's next novel, Nailer, the tale of a man determined to get revenge, is set against the backdrop of Ireland's abusive Industrial School system and the collusion between church and state that allowed it flourish.

A former employee of the Garden City Public Schools, Tom Phelan was born and raised on a farm in County Laois in the Irish midlands. He now makes his home in Freeport.