Dion O’Reilly
Filed under: Authors
Dion O'Reilly, a graduate of Pacific University's low-residency MFA program, splits her time between a family compound in the Santa Cruz Mountains and a residence in Bellingham, Washington. When she was nineteen, she survived a house fire, losing most of her backside skin as well as pieces of hand and foot. Dion's poetry seeks to take memories—found items in the mind—and pour them into different containers, over and over, until the memories seem more real and true, what they were before, but more so.
Dion's debut collection, Ghost Dogs (Terrapin Books), was runner-up for The Catamaran Prize and shortlisted for a variety of other prizes including the The Eric Hoffer Award. Her second book, Sadness of the Apex Predator, will be published by the University of Wisconsin's Cornerstone Press in 2024. Her work appears in The Sun, Rattle, New Ohio Review, Narrative, The Slowdown, and elsewhere. She facilitates private workshops, hosts a podcast at The Hive Poetry Collective, and is a reader for Catamaran Literary Quarterly.
Website: https://dionoreilly.wordpress.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/dionoreilly
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dian.oreilly/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/deepobrain/
Winning Entry: After the Final Skin Graft
Contest Won: Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest 2022, Honorable Mention, Margaret Reid
