Dan O’Brien is a playwright, poet, memoirist, essayist, and librettist. His most prominent works have been the play The Body of an American and the poetry collection War Reporter. He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2015–2016. His play The House in Scarsdale: A Memoir for the Stage was the winner of the 2018 PEN America Award for Drama.
In 2024, O’Brien premiered his play Newtown at Geva Theatre Center, directed by Elizabeth Williamson. Newtown is the recipient of the 2024 Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation Theatre Visions Fund Award.
His nonfiction has appeared in American Scholar, American Theatre, Esquire, The Guardian, The Irish Times, Literary Hub, Los Angeles Review of Books, New England Review, The New York Times, The Paris Review, Poetry London, The Stage, The Times Literary Supplement, The Washington Post, and elsewhere.
His poems, plays, and fiction have appeared internationally in journals, magazines, and newspapers including 14 Magazine, 32 Poems, Ambit, America, And Other Poems, Bad Lilies, Blackbird, Bennington Review, Birmingham Poetry Review, Cincinnati Review, Cortland Review, Crab Orchard Review, Cyphers, The Dark Horse, Event, Exacting Clam, Fenland Poetry Journal, The Fiddlehead, Geist Magazine, Greensboro Review, Hopkins Review, Hanging Loose, The Interpreter’s House, The Kenyon Review, Literary Hub, Laurel Review, Magma Poetry, Malahat Review, Missouri Review, The Moth, New England Review, North American Review, Northwest Review, Plume, Poet Lore, Poetry Birmingham Literary Journal, Poetry Ireland, Poetry London, Poetry Review, Poetry Salzburg Review, Poetry Wales, The Rialto, Saint Ann’s Review, Salamander, Sewanee Review, Smartish Pace, South Carolina Review, The Southern Review, Southwest Review, Southword, St. Petersburg Review, Stand, The Stinging Fly, storySouth, StoryQuarterly, Sugar House Review, The Sunday Times, Tampa Review, Under the Radar, Verse Daily, War, Literature & the Arts, The White Review, Wild Court, Witness, Yale Review, and ZYZZYVA.