Paying respect to the perspective of Frank McCourt

When the author of Angela's Ashes, a Pulitzer Prize winner, published that book, he was in well into his 60's. It was his first published book. That gives encouragement to any writer who is not in their teens or twenties. Here's a collection of Frank McCourt's thoughts about writing. And teaching. This is not the whole collection, just a taste. Hit the link to read the whole thing.

These were compiled for the About.com blog, Grammar and Composition, by Richard Nordquist. (If you are a writer or language person of any type, I highly recommend that blog.)

Remembering Frank McCourt, "Teacher Man"

Here are a few ... observations on writing and the teaching of writing.

The Magic of Writing:
I always wanted to write because for me it was magic to get a piece of paper and put words on it. As I'm always saying, to put together words that were never before put together by anybody. To take two words that were never joined together like a "scintillating turnip." I would put words together like that just to keep the language fresh.
(Frank McCourt Interview, The Academy of Achievement, June 19, 1999)

Finding His Voice in Angela's Ashes:
After 20 pages of standard omniscient author, I wrote something that I thought was just a note to myself, about sitting on a seesaw in a playground, and I found my voice, the voice of a child. That was it. It carried me through to the end of the book.
(quoted in The Providence Journal, 1997)

Teaching and Learning:
You can teach biology and origami and how to skin a rabbit but I don't think you can teach creative writing. You can hint and nudge and inspire and encourage. You can help aspiring writers in their search for their material, their style. . . . What I learned, most of all, was that if you're teaching and not learning then you're not teaching, and if you don't enjoy yourself in the classroom, you might as well be driving a taxi.
(Frank McCourt, "Reflections on Creative Writing Class," The New York Times, April 14, 2002)

Follow Your Bliss:
I found out eventually why I was put on this earth. I was put on this earth to write. And as Thomas Carlyle said, "Happy is the man who has found his work." So I'm happy, and I hope everybody else finds that, too.
(Frank McCourt Interview, The Academy of Achievement, June 19, 1999)

- JRO

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