Photo credit: Dave O’Caroll
Thomas Morris is a writer and editor from Caerphilly, South Wales. He lives in Dublin.
Publications
Open Up (August 2023)
We Don’t Know What We’re Doing (2015)
Dubliners 100 (editor) (2014)
Full publication list: here.
All the hype/praise: click here.
Bio
Thomas Morris is the author of two books of stories: We Don’t Know What We’re Doing (2015) and Open Up (2023), both published by Faber & Faber.
His awards include the Wales Book of the Year, The Rhys Davies Trust Fiction Award, and a Somerset Maugham Award. In 2023, he was named as one of the 20 Best Young British Novelists by Granta magazine. His work has been shortlisted for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize; and longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize, and the Sunday Times Short Story Award. His books have been chosen as a Book of the Year by The Guardian, The Observer, The Spectator, The Irish Times, and The Irish Independent.
His stories have been published, anthologised, and broadcast in numerous venues, including: The Penguin Book of the Contemporary British Short Story; Best European Fiction; Zoetrope; Granta; BBC Radio 4; The Stinging Fly; and most recently in Italian translation in Il Rifugio dell'Ircocervo.
Editing, mentoring
As an editor and mentor, Thomas has worked on stories and books by authors including Nicole Flattery, Rebecca Ivory, Michael Magee, and Chetna Maroo.
He devised and edited Dubliners 100 (Tramp Press), wherein 15 Irish authors wrote ‘cover versions’ of the stories from James Joyce’s Dubliners. The book won the Best Irish-published book at the Irish Book Awards.
Between 2014 and 2016 (Issues 28, 29, 30, 32 and 34), he was Editor of The Stinging Fly magazine. He later became Editor at Large, and he ran the Stinging Fly’s writer development programme.
More info about his editing here.
Teaching
Thomas has led workshops and masterclasses at a number of UK and Irish literary festivals. He has also delivered talks and seminars on writing and publishing to students at the following institutions: The University of Iowa, Northwestern University, University of East Anglia, University of Galway, Swansea University, Bangor University, Irish College (Leuven), Belvedere College, The Irish Writers Centre, The Faber Academy, and The Arvon Foundation. During 2017-18, Thomas was Writer in Residence at University College Cork, where he taught on the MA in Creative Writing.
Misc
Thomas was the 2022 Commissioned Writer for Temple Bar Gallery + Studios; he was on the selection panel for the 2021 Play It Forward Fellowship; and a judge for the 2017 Edge Hill Short Story Prize. He’s a former Welsh-league footballer; and in 2003, despite not knowing the rules, he competed at the Ultimate Frisbee Brit Open.