"Overnight success" takes 20 years for artist-writer
Visual artist Michael O'Brien finds a niche in the literary scene, but it takes timeBy Andrew Wagner-Chazalon
The writer, who lives in the tiny eastern Ontario hamlet of Brudenell, has achieved the kind of success other first time novelists only dream of. His first book, Father Elijah: An Apocalypse (CW, Jun10/97), sold over 10,000 copies in its first year. His second, Strangers and Sojourners, has also been a bestseller, and San Francisco-based Ignatius Press plans to release four more of his novels in the next few years.
After 20 years of rejection, it’s a satisfying change.
His first taste of success came in 1978, when O’Brien’s first novel was short-listed in a contest run by Bantam Books. It was a tradition that all seven finalists were published, but O’Brien’s book never was. The reason, he says, was its overt Christian theme.
