Colum McCann
Colum McCann
Colum McCannis an Irish writer of literary fiction. He was born in Dublin, Ireland and now lives in New York. He is a Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing in the Master of Fine Arts program at Hunter College, New York with fellow novelists Peter Carey and Tea Obreht, and has visited many universities and colleges all over the world...
NationalityIrish
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth28 February 1965
CountryIreland
dad involved journalism local matches reports time twelve written wrote
I'd been involved in journalism for a long time - my dad's a journalist, he's written many books, and when I was twelve years old I wrote reports on local football matches for the newspapers.
dream time-spent
So much of her time spent like this: dreaming up things to say and never quite saying them.
clarity experience remind stories time
I think we need stories, and we need to tell the stories over and over and over not only to remind us, but to be able to have that clarity of experience that changes us, so that we know who we are now because of who we have been at some other time.
moments time toward
I think we're moving toward moments of grace and understanding. And I think these things take time.
believe fiction good hold poet properly truth writer
I don't believe a poet has a better hold on truth or morality than a fiction writer has. And I don't think a fiction writer has anything over a journalist. It's all about the good word, properly inserted.
fact great talks
'Let the Great World Spin' at the end talks a lot about connections and light and possibility and the fact that the world doesn't end. Even in the darkest times, we have to go on.
color cut full price trick wardrobe
I have a wardrobe full of scarves now, just about every color under the sun. My trick is that I always cut them in two, down the middle. They're lighter, thinner, skinnier that way. And because I'm cheap, I get two scarves for the price of one.
new-york moments landing
She's always thought that one of the beauties of New York is that you can be from anywhere and within moments of landing its yours.
cannot trade
You cannot read any image of the World Trade Center without thinking of 9/11.
best writers
The best writers attempt to become alternative historians.
hatred borders strikes
...and it strikes her, as she walks, that borders, like hatred, are exaggerated precisely because otherwise they would cease to exist altogether.
new-york cities ordinary-days
One of those out-of-the-ordinary days that made sense of the slew of ordinary days. New York had a way of doing that. Every now and then the city shook its soul out. It assailed you with an image, or a day, or a crime, or a terror, or a beauty so difficult to wrap your mind around that you had to shake your head in disbelief.
perfect people half
People are good or half good or a quarter good, and it changes all the time- but even on the best day nobody's perfect.
heart care might
He might have been naive, but he didn't care; he said he's rather die with his heart on his sleeve than end up another cynic.