U takes author's work a long way from Tipperary

The reclusive dairy farmer, the spinster grieving a lost love and the postman's widow in Patrick O'Keeffe's award-winning first book, "The Hill Road," inhabit the distant Irish village of Kilroan.

(Photo by Valerie Laken)

But the characters sprang to life in Ann Arbor, where O'Keeffe, a lecturer in The Gayle Morris Sweetland Writing Center and the English Department, penned the book that would earn him one of literature's most prestigious awards.

O'Keeffe received the Whiting Writers Award at a ceremony on Oct. 25 at The Morgan Library & Museum in New York City. The $40,000 prize, given to 10 emerging writers of exceptional talent by the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation annually since 1985, is considered a great honor and is highly competitive. Winners are chosen from more than 100 nominations by a selection committee of prominent writers who are appointed by the foundation.

O'Keeffe says he was stunned by the news.

"This is a great honor," he says. "You don't expect these things to happen."

In January O'Keeffe also won the $20,000 Story Prize for "The Hill Road," a collection published in 2005 by Viking.

"Until I came to U-M, I didn't see myself as a writer," O'Keeffe says. "It was here that I started to take myself seriously. They were very receptive to what I was doing."

O'Keeffe, 43, who grew up on an Irish dairy farm on the Limerick-Tipperary border, came to Boston in 1986, where he worked as a bartender, construction worker and a house painter. He later moved to Lexington, Ky., and began writing poetry and fiction. In 1996 he earned a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Kentucky.

In 2000 he earned a Master of Fine Arts in writing at U-M and began teaching in the English Department and at the Sweetland Center, which together provided him with an atmosphere that continued to nurture his creativity. The center was established in 1997 in LSA with a gift of nearly $5 million from alumnus John W. Sweetland to foster clear and effective writing among undergraduate and graduate students.

The same year he came to the center, his story "Looby's Hill" was published in Doubletake magazine, and he began working on three other novellas that are included in "The Hill Road."

The book is set in 20th-century Ireland in the fictional farming village of Kilroan, which is similar to where O'Keeffe grew up. There, love, secrets, unfulfilled dreams and moral compromises are detailed in rich, lyrical prose that was hailed by critics.

The book also was a Barnes & Noble Fall 2005 Discover Great New Writers selection.

LSA Dean Terrence J. McDonald praised O'Keeffe's work.

"We are pleased and proud that Patrick O'Keeffe's engaging fiction has been recognized by this major award," McDonald says. "It is also gratifying to know the Master of Fine Arts program and the Sweetland Writing Center have provided an atmosphere where his talent can flourish."

Says Peter Ho Davies, the Helen Zell Director of the MFA Program in Creative Writing: "Patrick is a spectacular writer, a real credit to the MFA Program and the English Department, and this award is richly deserved indeed."

Sean Norton, assistant director of the MFA Program in Creative Writing, says O'Keeffe is "one of the best writers fiction has right now."