Erin O'Brien

Erin O'Brien's eclectic features and essays have appeared in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and others. The sixth generation northeast Ohioan is also author of The Irish Hungarian Guide to the Domestic Arts. Visit erinobrien.us for complete profile information.

Take a hike: Cleveland Metroparks 2023 Trail Challenge is underway; a look back at the 2022 trails
The Cleveland Metroparks 2023 Trail Challenge is underway! Find out how to enroll and read about Erin O'Brien's experiences on the 2022 Trail Challenge in this recap.
Keeping it clean: Metroparks embraces green infrastructure to naturally treat stormwater runoff
The Cleveland Metroparks has slated four 2023 projects that will naturally clean millions of gallons of stormwater and expand the park system's stewardship of our fragile fresh water.
 
Metroparks Trail Challenge: Ending on a high note at the Rocky River Reservation
In her 10th and final installment of her Metroparks 2022 Trail Challenge journey, writer Erin O'Brien visits the Fort Hill trail loop and its giant staircase, and took in the many other sites on her four-mile excursion.
Metroparks Trail Challenge: Menacing trees, meandering trails, a mysterious castle in North Chagrin
In the spirit of the Halloween season, FreshWater writer Erin O'Brien ventured out to Squire's Castle at the Cleveland Metroparks' North Chagrin Reservation to investigate whether the property is really haunted. Read what she discovered on this leg of the 2022 Trail Challenge.
We Tried It: I got my biofield tuned
FreshWater's Erin O'Brien has practiced Reiki for more than 20 years. So when she was invited to try biofield turning—sound therapy to tune up our bodies' electrical systems—she decided to check it out. 
Metroparks Trail Challenge: Kayaking and other water fun on Hinckley Lake
Writer Erin O'Brien has taken the Cleveland Metroparks Trail Challenge and has been chronicling her challenges. In her eighth installment, O'Brien traveled to the Hinkley Reservation to test her kayaking skills for the first time.  
Metroparks Trail Challenge: Garfield Park Reservation, an urban greenspace with a hidden waterfall
Despite the massive $7 million renovation project at Garfield Park Reservation, FreshWater's Erin O'Brien was able to navigate the park entrance, without using her GPS, and discover the history and the natural wonders this stretch of the Metroparks Trail Challenge had to offer.
Metroparks Trail Challenge: A gritty and majestic walk along the Lakefront Reservation
Writer Erin O'Brien just checked out the Lakefront Reservation, including Edgewater Beach and its Beach House, Wendy's Way pedestrian bridge, and Whiskey Island Still & Eatery, among other points of interest. Follow her adventures on this sixth leg of her Metroparks 2022 Trail Challenge.
Metroparks Trail Challenge: exploring the rock ledges—or rock legends—of Hinckley and South Chagrin
Writer Erin O'Brien is chronicling her adventures participating in the Cleveland Metroparks 2022 Trail Challenge—completing either 10 or 20 Metroparks trails by biking, hiking, paddling, running, skating or walking. Read her latest installment here.
Metroparks Trail Challenge: Center Park loop and rubies in the sky at the West Creek Reservation
Writer Erin O'Brien is chronicling her adventures participating in the Cleveland Metroparks 2022 Trail Challenge—completing either 10 or 20 Metroparks trails by biking, hiking, paddling, running, skating or walking. Read her latest installment here.
Metroparks Trail Challenge: A fun, but muddy loop while en route to Deer Lick Cave
Writer Erin O'Brien is chronicling her adventures participating in the Cleveland Metroparks 2022 Trail Challenge—completing either 10 or 20 Metroparks trails by biking, hiking, paddling, running, skating or walking. Read her latest installment here.
Metroparks Trail Challenge: Discovering the Hidden Valley at the Ohio & Erie Canal Reservation
When writer Erin O'Brien heard the Cleveland Metroparks was launching its 2022 Trail Challenge—completing either 10 or 20 Metroparks trails by biking, hiking, paddling, running, skating or walking—she quickly raised her hand to accept. O'Brien is chronicling her trail adventures for FreshWater. Read about her first trail!
  
Rock Hall induction: Brushes with music legends from behind the scenes
From the media room in the underbelly of Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse, writer Erin O'Brien and FreshWater managing photographer Bob Perkoski share some behind the scenes moments from the 36th Annual Rock & Roll Hall of Fame ceremony last Saturday, Oct. 30.
In her words: Immersed in Vincent
Writer Erin O'Brien takes a welcome step away from reality and into the immersive world if Vincent Van Gogh.
A day of emotion at the Justice for George Floyd march
The "I can't Breathe: Justice for George Flynn" memorial protest began as an event of mourning and solidarity. But as the crowd wound its way from Willard Park to the Justice Center, things began to escalate.
Urban Hike: to water's edge
Fresh Water managing editor Erin O'Brien bids readers farewell with a good long walk along an offbeat path.
American Dream, Constant Sun illuminate MOCA
Wall clocks that tell stories, but not time; TRUTH from Detroit; an embarrassment of pickles — it all adds up to a feast of color and content amid MOCA Cleveland's summer 2017 exhibition.
Face to face: Stephen Yusko
Tucked away on East 41th Street just across the way from Tyler Village, Stephen Yusko is toiling away at his studio wherein you'll find milling machines and band saws and the usual residents in a metalworking shop. But Yusko's tools also include anvils, a white-hot forge and the tongs and hammers that transform steel into the smith's graceful designs.
 
"My work is a combination of forging, machining and fabricating. It seems like more machining, but it always starts with a forged … something," says Yusko. "I enjoy that process: heating up a bar of steel and transforming it into a shape."
 
Yusko continues while a cat named M slinks around the shop, completely unimpressed by the craftsman's lofty musings:

Read them here, and find out where this able smith like to sup when he's not manning the forge.
Public Square to bloom with music, storytelling and more this summer
As we head into summer's unofficial kick-off this Memorial Day weekend, Fresh Water takes a closer look at what "Arts & Culture on the Square" will bring to everyone's favorite downtown greenspace.
 
Nationally touring 'This is Hunger' illuminates a quiet crisis
'This is Hunger," an interactive community engagement program housed in a big rig that's touring nationwide, will stop in Beachwood next month.