Heroes of our stories
By: Sherisse Mohammed
6/24/2017
Brandon O'Brien is a 27 year old poet and sci-fi/ fantasy writer who facetiously describes himself as a “fool” who enjoys taking neat ideas and making them collide with one another, until they break and something even cooler falls out of their remains. The aspiring novelist is known for his spoken word poetry however; over the years his work has been shortlisted for the 2014 and 2015 Small Axe Literary Competitions. He has been fortunate enough to have some of his work published: poems like 'population changes' and 'the lagahoo speaks for itself' in online speculative fiction magazines as well as short stories in similar online spaces or published in anthologies like New Worlds, Old Ways.
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O’Brien believes that what sets his work apart from others is his ability to create by incorporating what he thinks is more of himself as well as Trinidad into his work. He also puts focus on the marginalized groups by highlighting them as what he considers ‘heroes’ of their own stories. He draws his inspiration from life around him and says that he sees it as the opportunity to use things that society isn’t familiar with or thinks is (im)possible and use them as lenses to look at the world as it is.
In his short story entitled 'They Will Take You From You' , O’ Brien says that on the surface the story is about aliens coming to Earth and inspiring humans to become cultural geniuses however the storyline digs deeper showing how people view the body, about family, about people who want above all to be good at something.
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O’Brien firmly believes that telling stories about how real people respond to things that are beyond them is really just an opportunity to see more clearly how they respond to their own world. “Alien invasions are really just colonization, magic spells are really just our desire to maintain control, androids are really just about the difference between a mind and a soul. And being able to apply that lens gives me a chance to tell what may be a very interesting-looking story, something that will draw people's initial attention, knowing that the heart of it is there for them to stumble upon. It's what I love about the stories I've reread over the years, and I'm always working to give that kind of meaning back.”
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Check out his work in the links below!