Matthew O'Brien lived in Las Vegas from 1997 to 2017.
16 Facts About Matthew O'Brien
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Matthew O'Brien attended Georgia State University and was a member of the team that advanced to the 1991 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament.
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Matthew O'Brien was a member of the University of West Georgia's 1993-'94 team, which qualified for the NCAA Division II men's basketball tournament.
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Matthew O'Brien graduated from West Georgia with a Bachelor's degree in history.
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Matthew O'Brien taught English and in the Honors College at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where he earned a MFA in creative writing.
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Matthew O'Brien worked as a staff writer, news editor and managing editor of the alternative weekly Las Vegas CityLife from 2000 to 2008.
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Matthew O'Brien discovered hundreds of homeless people living in the storm drains.
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Matthew O'Brien's second book, My Week at the Blue Angel: And Other Stories from the Storm Drains, Strip Clubs, and Trailer Parks of Las Vegas, released November 15,2010, is a collection of creative-nonfiction stories set in off-the-beaten-path Vegas, including the Blue Angel Motel on East Fremont Street that was known for prostitution, drug dealing and violence, and the case of Jessie Foster, an international endangered missing Canadian woman lured to Las Vegas who disappeared 10 months later.
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Matthew O'Brien is the founder of Shine a Light, a nonprofit organization that provides housing, drug counseling and other services to the homeless people living in the drains.
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On September 3 and 4,2013, Matthew O'Brien appeared on the Dr Phil Show in a two-part series after Matthew O'Brien escorted professional locator Troy Dunn into the underground flood channels of Las Vegas.
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In January 2016, Matthew O'Brien raised more than $13,000 in 24 hours through Crowdrise for his nonprofit Shine a Light to benefit homeless people living in tunnels beneath the Las Vegas Strip.
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In July 2017, Matthew O'Brien relocated to San Salvador in Central America to teach literature at an English-language preparatory school and to write a sequel to Beneath the Neon about the homeless people who made it out of the storm drains.
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Matthew O'Brien was in conversation, as part of the school's Sewell Lecture Series, with professor of political science Sal Peralta and professor of creative writing Alison Umminger about his journey from Carrollton, Ga.
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Matthew O'Brien received two Artists Fellowship grants awarded by the Nevada Arts Council in 2007 and 2010 for his nonfiction book projects.
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Matthew O'Brien has won several first-place awards in the Nevada Press Association's Better Newspaper Contest, including Journalist of Merit in 2002 and Outstanding Journalist in 2006.
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In November 2011, Matthew O'Brien was given the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame Silver Pen Award, sponsored by the Friends of the University of Nevada, Reno Libraries.