Thomas M. Atkinson

Bio

Thomas M. Atkinson is an author and playwright based in Anderson Township, Ohio. His fiction has appeared in The Sun, The North American Review, The Indiana Review, The Tampa Review, The Moon, City Beat, Electron Press Magazine, and numerous other journals and anthologies. His short story "Grimace in the Burnt Black Hills" received two Pushcart Prize nominations after appearing in The Sun, and his work has earned five Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Awards (1985, 1988, 1996, 2012, and 2014).

Atkinson's full-length plays include Clear Liquor & Coal Black Nights (Playhouse in the Park), Copperheads (Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati), and Cuttings (Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati, Theatre Conspiracy, and others). His short play Dancing Turtle won the 38th Annual Samuel French Off Off Broadway Festival and has appeared in multiple anthologies. Battling the Ghost of Max Schmeling was selected from 583 submissions for Fusion Theatre Company's ninth annual short works festival and received its world premiere in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in June 2014.

He was the 2013 Ohio Arts Council/Fine Arts Work Center Writer-in-Residence in Provincetown, Massachusetts, awarded each year to one writer from Ohio based on exceptional merit. His novels include Strobe Life (Electron Press) and Tiki Man (Regal House Publishing, 2021). He has directed and written for stage and screen, including the short film Dead Bunnies (1983), directed by Randy Shulman.

Awards

• Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award — 5× winner: 2014, 2012, 1996, 1988, 1985
• Ohio Arts Council / Fine Arts Work Center Writer-in-Residence, Provincetown, MA — 2013

Credits

• Director. Halfway Home, Pauline Smolin. Performed June 2–4, 1989, at the Westwood Town Hall in Cincinnati, Ohio.
• Writer. Dead Bunnies (1983). Short film, dir. Randy Shulman.