Bio

Finlay at Home in Ireland

    Finlay McQuade is a retired educator. He was born in Ireland, went to high school in England, and university in America. He has a BA in English from Pomona College, an MA in British and American literature from Harvard. He began his career in education as a high school English teacher, but after earning a PhD in education from the University of Pittsburgh, he worked for fifteen years as a consultant to schools and school improvement projects, mostly in the USA, but sometimes, also, in schools abroad. He co-authored How to Make a Better School and was frequently commissioned to write instructional manuals about teaching and learning for The College Board and The Modern Red Schoolhouse Institute. His articles have appeared in English Journal, Independent School, and Science and Children. He ended his career in education when he retired from Bogazici University in Istanbul.

      For eight years after retirement, he lived among the ruins of the ancient city of Ephesus. Its streets and squares and monuments became his neighborhood. His companions included archeologists, tour guides, and souvenir sellers. His curiosity about the people who had occupied those empty buildings in their heyday resulted in Life and Death in Ephesus, a collection of stories chronicling major events in the city’s history. Now, back in the USA, with time on his hands, the finds himself returning again and again to his Huckleberry boyhood on the coast of Ireland. The result of this time travel will be another collection of stories, part fiction, part memoir.