By Marc Speir
University News Service
October 9, 2007

Tim O’Brien

The center is located at 508 W Center Street in Kyle. Directions are available at www.english.txstate.edu/kap/. Events are free and open to the public.

O'Brien is the author of numerous critically acclaimed and commercially successful works of fiction, most of which concern his experiences during the Vietnam War. Despite his stance against the war, O’Brien was drafted in 1968 and served until 1970. During his time as a foot soldier in the U.S. Army he was awarded the Purple Heart. 

O’Brien launched a career in professional writing with the Washington Post and penned his first novel, If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home, in 1973. The novel was named outstanding book of the year by The New York Times.

His novels include Going After Cacciato, winner of the 1979 National Book Award in fiction and The Things They Carried, a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award.

O’Brien’s other works include Northern Lights, The Nuclear Age, and In the Lake of the Woods, named by Time magazine as the best novel of 1994. His two most recent books, Tomcat in Love and July, July, were national bestsellers.

His short stories have appeared in Esquire, Harper's, Atlantic, Playboy, Granta, Gentleman's Quarterly, The New Yorker, The O. Henry Prize Stories and Best American Short Stories of the Century. O'Brien was also awarded fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Readings are sponsored by the Department of English, the Katherine Anne Porter Literary Center and the Roy F. and Joann Mitte endowed chair in creative writing.