'Vernon Thomas' (John O'Brien) appears to have been the son of Michael O'Brien and Hannah (nee O'Grady). He joined the Australian army in ca. 1911, and during World War I briefly served overseas as Regimental Quartermaster and Warrant Officer with the 21st Infantry Battalion (Service No. 6943). At the time The Meteren Road was published in 1930, it was stated that he was attached to Victoria Barracks, Brisbane. He lived at Lodge Road, in the Brisbane suburb of Kalinga (Eagle Junction), from the 1920s until his death in 1953.
O'Brien's other known works are 'The Candle', which won first prize in the 1930 Queensland Authors' and Artists' Association Short Story Competition, and 'Blue Sky', which was ranked highly by the judges of the 1934 Centenary Short Story Competition (won by Vance Palmer). However, it is unclear whether either of these works were ever published.
Further biographical details remain to be established.
