Having earned a BFA in acting from Boston University, O’Connor worked for several years as an actress.
[1] She enrolled in the Programs in Writing at the University of California, Irvine, graduating with an MFA (fiction emphasis) in 1989.
O'Connor has published four novels,[2] all of which have been critically acclaimed: Like China (William Morrow, 1991), A Company of Three (Algonquin Books, 2003), The Cure,[3][4] and The Master's Muse (Scribner, 2012).
She currently teaches both fiction and nonfiction creative writing at Kent State University.
[5] O'Connor's novels deal with disparate elements: domestic marital abuse in Like China; the struggle to balance friendship, love and success in the acting world in A Company of Three; the flow and complexities of relationships in an extended family, set against a background of illness and wartime life in The Cure; and the relationship between Tanaquil LeClercq and George Balanchine in The Master's Muse.