Keith O'Brien

Award-winning journalist Keith O’Brien has a talent for bringing to life the stories of ordinary people trying to achieve great things. He has written four books, been a finalist for the PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sportswriting, long-listed for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction, and has contributed to multiple publications over the years.

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His most recent book, Charlie Hustle: The Rise and Fall of Pete Rose, and the Last Glory Days of Baseball, tells the full story of one of America’s most epic tragedies—the rise and fall of Pete Rose. This is no ordinary sports biography, but cultural history at its finest.

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His previous book, Paradise Falls: The True Story of an Environmental Catastrophe, tells the staggering, hidden story of an unlikely band of mothers who discovered the deadly secret of Love Canal, and exposed one of America’s most devastating environmental disasters. In Fly Girls: How Five Daring Women Defied All Odds and Made Aviation History, O’Brien tells the suspenseful story of the women who cracked aviation’s glass ceiling in the 1920s and ’30s and won the right to race airplanes. He is also the author of Outside Shot: Big Dreams, Hard Times, and One County’s Quest for Basketball Greatness.

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Credentials. Keith O’Brien’s radio stories have appeared on many of NPR’s programs, including its flagship news shows Morning Edition and All Things Considered. He has written for The New York Times and The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, and a number of other major periodicals. Keith is a former staff writer for both the Boston Globe and the New Orleans Times-Picayune. He has won several awards, including the Casey Medal for Meritorious Journalism.