ADVISORY BOARD

Charles Fanning, PhD – An historian, author and editor of a dozen books in Irish immigration and ethnic studies, Charlie is a winner of the American Book Award (1989) for his book, The Exiles of Erin: Nineteenth-Century Irish-American Fiction.  He also recently published his memoir, Mapping Norwod. Charlie is a retired professor from Southern Illinois University Carbondale where he won the outstanding scholar award in 2004. 




Katherine Hastings – Is the author of two collections from Spuyten Duyvil (NYC), Cloud Fire (2012) and Nighthawks (forthcoming), as well as several chapbooks. She is the executive director of the non-profit WordTemple; host of WordTemple on NPR affiliate KRCB FM and curator of the WordTemple Poetry Series in Sonoma County. For more information go to www.wordtemple.com.

Sean Heaney – Originally from Northern Ireland, Sean is the proprietor of The Plough & Stars Irish Pub in San Francisco, an important venue playing a critical role in the Irish music scene of Northern California for nearly 40 years.




Linda Norton is senior editor at the Regional Oral History Office at the Bancroft Librar at University of California, Berkeley. She has conducted interviews for NPR's Storycorps Griot series (archived in the Smithsonian Museum's African American History collection) and has worked as a historical consultant for the Peralta Hacienda, a community museum in the Fruitvale neighborhood of Oakland.  She is also a published poet and artist.

Caledonia Kearns is the editor of two anthologies of writing by Irish-American women, Cabbage and Bones: An Anthology of Irish-American Women's Fiction and Motherland: Writings by Irish-American Women about Mothers and Daughters. She has an MFA in poetry from Hunter College and her poems have appeared in The New Haven Review, The MOM Egg, and an upcoming issue of the Painted Bride Quarterly. She lives in Brooklyn with her daughter.



Miriam Nyhan, PhD - a native of County Wicklow, received her BA and MPhil degrees from University College Cork (N.U.I.) and her PhD from the European University Institute, Florence, Italy. She has been teaching Irish history at NYU since 2009. With a special interest in twentieth-century emigration from Ireland, oral history and comparative approaches, Professor Nyhan has focused her research on the 1950s Irish immigrants who settled in New York and London. Her book, ‘Are You Still Below?’ The Ford Marina Plant, Cork, 1917-1984, (The Collins Press, Cork, 2007) provides an illuminating social history of Ireland’s only Ford factory and demonstrates how oral histories can be used to complement written sources.

Nancy E. Quinn – Principal and CEO of Quinn Associates, Nancy is a highly respected consultant to arts organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area and has provided advice and guidance to this organization since its inception. 

 

Peter Quinn - Novelist, political historian and foremost chronicler of New York City, Peter received the American Book Award for his 1994 novel, Banished Children of Eve.  His other works of fiction include Hour of the Cat (2005) and The Man Who Never Returned (2010).  Looking for Jimmy: In Search of Irish America, a collection of nonfiction pieces, was published in 2007. Peter has written for television as well as participated as a guest commentator in several PBS documentaries including, “The Irish in America”. He is president and co-founder of Irish American Writers & Artists.

James Silas Rogers – Editor of New Hibernia Review, a journal of Irish Studies published by the University of St Thomas in Minnesota and a past president of the American Conference for Irish Studies. He has published widely on Irish-American writing, in such journals as US Catholic Historian, Études Irlandaises, Studies: An Irish Quarterly and the Canadian Journal of Irish Studies. With Mathew O'Brien, he co-edited After the Flood: Irish America 1945-1960 (2009). He has most recently edited Extended Family: Essays on Being Irish American from New Hibernia Review, to be published by Dufour Editions in 2013.

Timothy F. Sullivan – A tech savvy businessman with a love for set dancing, Tim has provided guidance on nearly all aspects of the organization’s development since its inception. Tim has also agreed to be on the Executive Board in the future. 

IN MEMORIAM

FOUNDERS & DIRECTORS

The Crossroads Irish-American Festival planning committee is composed of two core members. We are also greatly appreciative to our trusted festival volunteers and advisors.

Hillary Flynn, MSW has over 20 years of experience in the public and nonprofit sector. She has held positions in development, community outreach and program management. A graduate of Boston College, Hillary also has a Masters in Social Work (MSW) from San Francisco State University. She has been producing the Crossroads Irish-American Festival since 2004.

Contact Hillary Flynn at:
hillary@irishamericancrossroads.org

Margaret McPeake, PhD is adjunct faculty for the University of San Francisco at the Santa Rosa campus. Her research focuses on how gender informs the construction of identity in Irish and Irish-American literatures, as well as on interrelationships between Ireland and the Caribbean. She is currently at work on a project focused on Irish-Americans in Noir fiction. A native of the San Francisco Bay Area, she has a B.A. in Celtic Studies and English from U.C. Berkeley, an M.A. in English from San Francisco State University and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Miami. She has been producing the Crossroads Irish-American Festival since 2002.
She lives in Healdsburg with her husband and two young sons.

Contact Margaret McPeake at: margaret@irishamericancrossroads.org