Geoffrey O'Brien
Geoffrey O'Brien (born 1948 New York City, New York) is an American poet, editor, book and film critic, translator, and cultural historian. In 1992, he joined the staff of the Library of America as executive editor, becoming editor-in-chief in 1998. Biography. O'Brien was born in New York City and grew up in Great Neck, Long Island. His mother, Margaret O'Brien, née Owens, was a theater actress, and his father was Joseph O'Brien, one of the original WMCA Good Guys. O'Brien began publishing poetry and criticism in the 1960s. He has been a contributor to "Artforum", "Film  Comment", "The New York Times" and "The New York Times Book Review", "Village Voice", "New Republic", "Bookforum", and, especially, to the "New York Review of Books". He has also been published in numerous other publications, including "Filmmaker", "American Heritage", "The Armchair Detective", "Bomb", "Boston Globe", "Fence", GQ, "The Los Angeles Times Book Review", "Men’s Vogue", "Mother Jones", "The Nation", "Newsday", and Slate, and has contributed many essays for liner notes for The Criterion Collection. In addition, his work has been included in numerous anthologies. He has served as editor of The Reader's Catalog (1987–1991), a faculty member of  The Writing Program at The New School, a contributing editor at Open City, and was a member of the selection committee for The New York Film Festival in 2003. Literary style. Erudite but playful, O’Brien’s style as an essayist and reviewer is unique. Highly associative in approach, his dense, highbrow prose is often brought to bear upon the worlds of low-budget exploitation films and pulp fiction as well as more upscale and respectable venues of the cinematic, theater, literary, or popular music worlds. These wide-ranging pieces have been described as idiosyncratic “prose poems” and tend towards partial  autobiography in which he recollects youthful experiences as reader or viewer which — although they may or may not have been shared by his own readership — can lead deeply into unexpected aspects of the material at hand.