Alumni Chapter of New Jersey: Author Peter Quinn, GSAS ’74, College Club Talk

Peter Quinn, “New York Paddy,” author and Fordham Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Class of 1974 alumnus, will discuss the Irish in America.

In 1979, Quinn was appointed to the staff of Governor Hugh Carey as chief speechwriter. He continued in that role under Governor Mario Cuomo, helping craft the governor’s 1984 Democratic Convention speech and his address on religion and politics at Notre Dame University. Quinn joined Time Inc. as chief speechwriter in 1985 and retired as corporate editorial director for Time Warner at the end of 2007.

His 1994 novel Banished Children of Eve won a 1995 American Book Award. Looking for Jimmy: In Search of Irish America, a collection of non-fiction pieces, was published in 2007. National Book Award-winner Colum McCann has summed up Quinn’s trilogy of historical detective novels—Hour of the Cat (2005), The Man Who Never Returned (2010), and Dry Bones (2013)—as “generous and agile and profound.” All his books are currently in print and available from The Overlook Press.