Connell publishes his first short story under a pseudonym

In April, Connell publishes his first completed short story in the college literary journal under the pseudonym Conor McCready. The episode marks his first encounter with readers and with publication: an achievement he wants to protect from public scrutiny, and whose promise of recognition is overtaken by anxiety about errors and silence about its reception.

Submission and the editor’s response

Connell sends Sadie Darcy-O’Shea, editor of the college literary journal, the only short story he has really completed. Within an hour, Sadie replies that the story is incredible and asks to publish it. Connell’s pulse hammers through his body; he has to lie down and stare at the white ceiling. No one has read his work before, and the response opens what feels to him like a wild new landscape of experience.

His first reply is a retreat: he says he is glad she liked the story but does not think it is good enough to publish. Sadie answers with an emphatic plea. Connell paces, massages his neck, and eventually agrees on conditions: the story must appear under a pseudonym, and Sadie must not tell anyone who wrote it, including the other editors. She accepts the secrecy playfully and promises to keep his identity confidential.

Publication under a pseudonym

The story appears unedited in the journal’s May issue. On the morning it is printed, Connell finds a copy in the Arts Block and turns directly to the story, published as Conor McCready. The invented name gives him the concealment he requested, but does not make reading the printed work easy. Around him, students and faculty walk to morning lectures with coffee, unaware of the ordeal unfolding for him.

Connell spots two errors on the first page. He shuts the magazine, takes deep breaths, and opens it again; another error appears. His response moves from physical alarm to acute embarrassment, expressed in the wish to crawl beneath a plant and burrow into the earth. The errors are not merely defects on the page: because the story is publicly available while its author remains hidden, he must confront the printed object alone, unable either to withdraw it or openly explain his relation to it.

Reception, concealment, and aftermath

The pseudonym also cuts Connell off from the response he wants but fears. Since no one knows he wrote the story, he cannot ask people what they thought, and he never hears from anyone whether it was considered good or bad. In the absence of any reader response, he comes to suspect that Sadie published it only because she needed material for a deadline. That explanation is his own inference, not a judgment confirmed by the journal or its readers.

The experience leaves him with more distress than pleasure, despite the story’s acceptance and appearance in print. Yet he does not discard the evidence of publication: he keeps two copies of the magazine, one in Dublin and one under his mattress at home. The copies hold together the contradiction at the heart of the episode. Connell has crossed the threshold from private writing to publication, but anonymity protects him from exposure at the cost of leaving the achievement—and its meaning—unacknowledged.