Dan O'Brien Named SDCTE's 2001 Author of the Year

Excerpts from the announcement read at the SDCTE Spring Banquet in Mitchell. . . .

From those first stories collected in his prize winning Eminent Domain in 1987 to Equinox in 1997, we've recognized Dan O'Brien's naturalist's eye and his poet's heart.  Anyone who has hiked the canyons of the Black Hills or the river breaks on the edge of the Badlands knows that Dan O'Brien can write with a powerful sense of place, as he did in Spirit of the Hills or In the Center of the Nation.

Those of us who have read Dan O'Brien's work over the last decade or so knew no surprise to find him among such nationally known writers as Barry Lopez or W.S. Merwin in the 1998 edition of American Nature Writing.  We discovered O'Brien's skill with history in Contract Surgeon in 1999.

Last year, many people long familiar with his writing, met Dan O'Brien himself in the South Dakota Public Television special, "A Falconer's Memoir."  Rancher, endangered species biologist, novelist--Dan O'Brien has nut into words not only the mystery of the land but also the lives of the humans who inhabit the high plains.

SDCTE is pleased to name Dan O'Brien as 2001 Writer of the Year.