Malachy McCourt at 80: his wit and wisdom
“Do I contradict myself?” Walt Whitman famously asked. “I contain multitudes!”
Malachy McCourt might say the same about himself. Arriving in America in 1952 from County Limerick at age 20 with $4.00 in his pocket, he was soon drafted into the United States Air Force and served time in Germany. Returning to the United States, he … [Read more...] about What Are You Like?
Malachy McCourt
Writers and Poets
What Are You Like?
A Night for Saints and Sinners
An Evening with Edna O'Brien at NYU's Glucksman Ireland House Edna O’Brien threw down the gauntlet straight away. In discussing her latest collection, Saints and Sinners, at Glucksman Ireland House on May 31, she explained that Miss Gilhooley, the romantic librarian in the story “Send My Roots Rain,” had tried to organize literary evenings but found that “people only came … [Read more...] about A Night for Saints and Sinners
“Green Georgette”
A short story by Edna O'Brien from her collection Saints and Sinners. Thursday Mama and I have been invited to the Coughlans’. It is to be Sunday evening at seven o’clock. I imagine us setting out in good time, even though it is a short walk to the village where they live and Mama calling out to me to lift my shoes so that the high wet grass won’t stain the white patent. I … [Read more...] about “Green Georgette”
Meghan O’Rourke on Writing Through Grief
Meghan O'Rourke talks about her recent memoir, The Long Goodbye. Meghan O’Rourke’s accomplishments are many. A graduate of Yale, she was a fiction/nonfiction editor at The New Yorker at the age of 24, one of the youngest editors in the history of the magazine. She then became culture editor and literary critic for Slate, a poetry editor of The Paris Review from 2005-2010, and … [Read more...] about Meghan O’Rourke on Writing Through Grief
Mary Higgins Clark: Irish America Hall of Fame
A bestselling author who is proud to call herself "an Irish girl from the Bronx." The oldest living resident of New York died recently at age 111 and in a New York Times article only months earlier, she told the reporter that she had kept her mind alert by reading Agatha Christie and Mary Higgins Clark. A Higgins Clark novel keeping someone alive? Usually someone dies in the … [Read more...] about Mary Higgins Clark: Irish America Hall of Fame