Frank McCourt (2008 Symposium)

"F. Scott Fitzgerald said there are no second acts in American lives. I think I've proved him wrong. And all because I refused to settle for a one-act existence, the 30 years I taught English in various New York City high schools." Frank McCourt was already retired when he published his first book at age 66. Angela's Ashes, a memoir of his impoverished boyhood in Limerick, Ireland, shot to the top of the best-seller lists and remained there for over a year. Angela's Ashes won McCourt the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Biography. It was still topping the paperback lists when McCourt's second book 'Tis hit the bookstores, and the best-seller lists. A third bestseller, Teacher Man, recounts his years teaching in the New York City public schools. "After retiring from teaching I wanted a second act, not a rocker in Florida," McCourt says. After a lifetime of helping young people find their own voices, Frank McCourt has found his own, and millions of readers have found a friend to treasure.