Dorene O’Brien is a Detroit-based creative  writing teacher and writer whose stories have won the Red Rock Review Mark Twain Award for Short Fiction, the Nelson Algren Award, the New Millennium Writings Fiction Prize, and the international Bridport Prize. She has won fellowships from the NEA and the Vermont Studio Center. Her work has been nominated for two Pushcart prizes, has been published in special Kindle editions and has appeared in the Baltimore Review, Madison Review, Best of Carve Magazine, Short Story Review, Southern Humanities Review, the Chicago Tribune, Detroit Noir, Montreal Review, Passages North, and others. Voices of the Lost and Found, her first fiction collection, was a finalist for the Drake Emerging Writer Award and won the USA Best Book Award for Short Fiction. Her fiction chapbook, Ovenbirds and Other Stories, won the Wordrunner Chapbook Contest and was published in 2018. Her second full-length story collection, What It Might Feel Like to Hope, was named first runner-up in the Mary Roberts Rinehart Fiction Prize and will be released in 2019 by Baobab Press. She is currently writing a literary/Sci-Fi hybrid novel. 

Awards and Honors

IPPY Gold Medalist, Short Fiction, 2019

Pfeiffer-Hemingway Writer-in-Residence, 2019

Wordrunner Chapbook Contest Winner, 2018

Mary Roberts Rinehart Prize for Fiction Collections, First Runner-Up, 2017

Baltic Writing Residency Finalist, 2017

Woven Tale Press Fiction Contest, Honorable Mention, 2017

Vermont Studio Center Residency Grant, 2016

Atlas Review Chapbook Contest Finalist, 2015

Horatio Nelson Story Collection Finalist, 2015

StorySouth Million Writers Award Nomination, 2014, 2013

Best of the Net Story Nomination, 2014, 2013

International Fish Award Shortlist, 2013

Chris O’Malley (Madison Review) Prize in Fiction, Second Place, 2011

Drake Emerging Writer Award Finalist, 2009

Greensboro Review Literary Award for Fiction Finalist, 2009

USA Book News Best Book Award, 2008

Pushcart Prize Nomination, 2008, 2007, 2003

International Fish Award Shortlist, 2007

New Letters Literary Award Finalist, 2006

Best of Carve Award Winner, 2005

National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Grant, 2004

Bridport International Writing Competition Winner, 2004

Writer’s Voice Prose Award, 2004

Night Train Firebox Fiction Award, 2004

Chicago Tribune Nelson Algren Fiction Award, 2003

Willamette Award in Fiction Winner, 2003

Writer’s Voice Prose Award, 2003

Wind Magazine Fiction Contest Award Winner, 2002

New Millennium Writings Fiction Award Winner, 2002

New Letters Literary Award for Fiction Finalist, 2002

Greensboro Review Literary Award for Fiction Finalist, 2002

Authors in the Park Short Story Contest Winner, 2002

Red Rock Review Mark Twain Award for Short Fiction Winner, 2000

Peregrine Prize Winner, 1998

Graduate-Professional Scholarship, Wayne State University, 1997

Metro Times Summer Fiction Contest Winner, 1997

New Letters Literary Awards, University of Missouri, Second Runner Up, 1997