Meet Kings Boston's Patrick Tracey!
Hi Patrick. What do you do at Kings?
This term I have three classes to teach: a grammar class for level 6 and two conversation classes—one for level 7 in the general English Language program and an afternoon class in the accelerated high-school completion program.
How long have you worked at Kings and what did you do before?
Four years this month. I was a contract writer for Salon.com before turning to teaching.
Before that I’d had a long career as a writer. I was a copy editor on the financial and foreign desks of the Washington Post and a freelance correspondent for the Post in Russia. Later I found a more permanent home in journalism at the Washington City Paper. In 2000 I went back overseas, this time to London to cover the Houses of Parliament and Downing Street for a news service in Washington. Six years later, a book contract with Random House that came my way took me to Ireland. My book, Stalking Irish Madness, the product of four months in Ireland, wound up winning the 2008 PEN New England Award for Non-fiction.
What do you enjoy most about your job?
The students, of course, and the social nature of teaching. Each day is a very positive experience. There’s no better compensation.
What do you like most about Boston?
I enjoy the overall friendliness and the sports fanaticism and the colleges and universities that make Bostonians wicked smaht. I like the townies too, the locals, and the way grown men my age still call each other ‘kid.’
Where’s the best place you’ve visited?
I’ve spent quite a bit of time in St. Petersburg, Russia, which was wild and crazy in the late 1980s and early 1990s, but I’m partial to London.
What’s the last book you read?
A novel called Stoner by John Williams, about a farm boy from a hundred years ago who becomes an English professor at the University in Missouri. The novel is flawless.
What is your favorite film?
Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, by Stanley Kubrick. It’s a masterpiece of black-humor. I think I’ve seen it a hundred times.
Who would play you in a film of your life?
Either Donald Sutherland or Michael Keaton or a morph of these two actors. Every now and then I’m told I look like one of these guys.
Which well-known figure would you most like to invite to dinner?
President Obama, hands down. The first black president is the world’s coolest guy.
What’s your favorite quote?
“Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy.” - William Butler Yeats
联系人
报价
申请
关注微信公众号
