Peter Quinn is a master storyteller, essayist, speechwriter and an esteemed chronicler of Irish America whose books have received popular and critical acclaim.

 

He is a third-generation Irish-American and New Yorker whose grandparents were born in Ireland. His historical novel Banished Children of Eve: A Novel of Civil War New York, published in 1994, won the 1995 American Book Award. Since 1979, Quinn has worked as a speechwriter for clients that include New York Governors Hugh Carey and Mario Cuomo as well as Time Warner, where he was hired as chief speechwriter in 1985.

 

Educated by the De La Salle Christian Brothers at Manhattan Prep and Manhattan College, Quinn went to graduate school at Fordham. He has written for The New York Times, Commonweal, American Heritage, The Philadelphia Enquirer, The Los Angeles Times, Eiré-Ireland, and Irish America. In 2005, Quinn published the historical thriller Hour of the Cat, and in 2007 switched gears with Looking for Jimmy: A Search for Irish America, a collection of essays about the Irish in New York. Banished Children of Eve was re-released in 2008, and Quinn recently wrote a treatment for a six-part documentary for RTE on Irish America’s political history entitled, The Road to the White House: From the Great Hunger to JFK.

 

He lives in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York with his wife, Kathy.