Geoffrey O'Brien is a poet, editor, and cultural historian. He retired from his role as editor in chief for The Library of America in 2017 but continues as a consulting editor.
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 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.
He has won the Whiting Foundation Writing Award in the year 1988. His books include Hardboiled America: Lurid Paperbacks and the Masters of Noir, The Phantom Empire: Movies in the Mind of the Twentieth Century, The Times Square Story, Doing It: Five Performing Arts, and The Fall of the House of Walworth: Madness and Murder in Gilded Age America. He lives in New York City.
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