Post-war

In 1978, O’Brien completed Going After Cacciato which was awarded the National Book Award. Although the piece is set in wartimes, O’Brien considers the novel to be one of peace. Tim O’Brien wrote Speaking of Courage in 1980 and only a few years later, he wrote Nuclear Age (1985), which dealt with the Cold War and the possibility of the annihilation of human existence. Throughout the early portion of the 1980s, several of O’Brien’s short stories were being published in various magazines and journals, including those stories that became the basis for The Things They Carried (1990), which has become his most famous work.

O’Brien’s writing career continued with the publication of In the Lake of the Woods (1994) and Tomcat in Love (1998). In the Lake of the Woods deals with the My Lai massacre and a Vietnam veteran who brings his memories of that bleak moment in American history into his political campaign and Tomcat in Love centers around a young man in need of love. Tim O’Brien’s latest work was published in 2002, July, July. This novel focuses on what he considers the most important month of 1969, stating in an interview it was "a big, pivotal year for me. I was wounded in battle that year, saw friends die. It was the scariest month of my life, May of ’69, but it was also a watershed year for America. The whole hawks-at-the-throats-of-doves thing going on, and battles about the war. The beginnings of the sexual revolution and feminism. It was huge, huge month in American history."

Today, Tim O’Brien is the Writer in Residence at Southwest Texas State University, where he teaches in the Creative Writing Program. He is available for lecture series and presentations where he discusses not only writing the short story, but also writing about the Vietnam War. He has been selected to both the Society of American Historians and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.