Dan O’Brien

Dan O’Brien is an internationally produced and published playwright, poet, and nonfiction writer whose recognition in playwriting includes a Guggenheim Fellowship and two PEN America Awards. O’Brien’s poetry collections are the newly published Survivor’s Notebook (Acre Books), Our Cancers (Acre Books), Scarsdale (Measure Press & CB Editions), New Life (Hanging Loose Press & CB Editions), and War Reporter (Hanging Loose Press & CB Editions), which in the UK received the Fenton Aldeburgh Prize and was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection. O’Brien has frequently taught playwriting at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference; a collection of his lectures from Sewanee, entitled A Story That Happens, was published by CB Editions in the UK and by Dalkey Archive Press in the US in 2021. This year Dalkey Archive will publish his memoir, From Scarsdale: A Childhood, as well as a collection of his plays, True Story: A Trilogy. In early 2024 CB Editions will publish his play Newtown, to coincide with the play’s premier at Geva Theatre Center, and Poetry London will publish his pamphlet Flying on Easter. O’Brien lives in Los Angeles with his wife, actor and writer Jessica St. Clair, and their daughter Isobel.