Nationality American Education Texas State University | Genre Literary fiction Books Evacuation Plan | |
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Occupation novelist, short story writer and journalist | ||
Joe M. O'Connell is an American novelist, short story writer, photographer and journalist based in Austin, Texas.
Considered an expert on the Texas film scene, his columns about the Texas film industry appeared in the Austin American-Statesman from 2000 to 2004 (titled "On Location"), and currently run in the Dallas Morning News (as "Shot in Texas") and The Austin Chronicle. His film articles also have been published regularly in the San Antonio Express-News since 1997 and nationally in Variety. He has also contributed to Texas Monthly.
Born in Austin, Texas, to noted architect William R. O'Connell and nurse Wylma Castleberry O'Connell Ruelke, Joe was raised mainly in Austin, but lived briefly in Northglenn, Colorado, and India. He then went to Southwest Texas State University and received a degree in journalism in 1984. O'Connell worked as a newspaper reporter/editor in various cities around Texas, concentrating on covering government and politics. He later returned to SWT (now known as Texas State University) to earn an MFA in creative writing in 1995 while working long distance with the late, famed short-story writer Andre Dubus.
His first novel, Evacuation Plan, centered in a residential hospice was published in 2007 by Dalton Publishing, won the North Texas Book Festival Award in fiction, and was a finalist for the Violet Crown Book Award given by the Writers' League of Texas. O'Connell's short stories have taken first prize at both the Deep South Writers Conference and the Louzelle Rose Barclay Awards, and have been published in literary journals including The G.W. Review, Confrontation, Lullwater Review and Other Voices.
O'Connell currently teaches writing at St. Edward's University and Austin Community College. He lives outside Austin, Texas, with his wife and young son.