Southampton - The Southampton Review (TSR), the literary magazine published by Stony Brook Southampton's Master of Fine Arts (MFA) Program in Literature and Creative Writing will honor bestselling author and faculty member Frank McCourt in Volume III. TSR will be available on July 15 to inaugurate the MFA Program's annual summer Writers Conference (July 15 through July 26).

Following what is fast-becoming a tradition, the new issue will be celebrated at a gala launch with readings by a selected group of contributors - many of whom are household names - on Friday evening, July 24 at 7:30 p.m. in the beautifully restored Avram Theater on campus. In attendance will be the former Poet Laureate of the United States, Billy Collins, along with distinguished guests from the worlds of writing, art, theatre and the community.

In honoring McCourt, Robert Reeves, founder and director of the MFA Program said, "On a faculty with Nobel Laureates, Poet Laureates, winners of Pulitzers, Emmys and Oscars, only Frank's readings fill football stadiums. He is our rock star." For Roger Rosenblatt, essayist and fellow faculty member, it is "because he's a great writer, a great soul and he sings when he's sober."

McCourt turned the odds of a difficult childhood in his favor, finding riches in poverty, family, immigration and teaching. He wrote "Angela's Ashes in 1996," at the age of 60, defying F. Scott Fitzgerald's edict that "there are no second acts in American lives."

He received the Pulitzer Prize (1997) and National Book Circle Award (1996) for his first effort, followed by "'Tis" (1999), "Teacher Man" (2005) and "Angela and the Baby Jesus" (2007). As Anne Bancroft said to Alan Alda, as they sat side-by-side in his celebrated memoirist class, "Where else would you want to be on a summer afternoon?"

McCourt has been a member of the MFA faculty for almost a decade. "With this issue of The Southampton Review, we hope to set a new standard for the 'Mention McCourt' tradition," says Reeves. "No one's quite sure how this came about, but at every public gathering, lecture, reading and theater event, we always shoehorn in a reference to Frank. Even our editor-in-chief Lou Ann Walker has put together an extraordinary journal that relentlessly mentions McCourt no less than 300 times."

Readers will find W.S. Merwin's essay "Listening to Frank," Terence Moran's "First Friday Club," which included Jimmy Breslin, William Kennedy and McCourt, Clark Blaise's "Smudges on the Photographs: The Memoirs of Frank McCourt," and Malachy and Alphie McCourt's essays. There is even a Frank McCourt Quiz, "Everything You Think You Know about Frank" by Christian McLean, a flock of quotes, "The Wit and Wisdom of Frank McCourt" and a cartoon image of Frank McCourt by Jules Feiffer.

In addition, there are essays by Rosenblatt, Distinguished Professor at SUNY, Anne Taylor Fleming, Susan Jane Gilman, Nicholas Sopkin and Helen Simonson, a recent MFA Graduate who will publish her first novel with Random House. TSR III includes poetry from Grace Schulman, Julie Sheehan, award-winning poet and MFA faculty, Alexandra van de Camp, Jay Rubin, Tara Propper, Michelle Whittaker, Patricia Spears Jones and Robert Thomas. Additional contributors are Melissa Bank ("Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing"), cartoonists Liza Donnelly (New Yorker) and Michael Maslin, artists Amy Portnoy (The New York Times) Gregory de la Haba and Arnold Roth. Jacques Barzun and Lionel Trilling tackle the writer's craft, in "How to Write."

The Southampton Review was first published in 2007. A natural offspring of Southampton's MFA Program and Writers Conference, TSR places the works of established and emerging writers side-by-side, nurturing new talent.

For information about the Writers Conference and the Gala TSR Launch, call 631-632-5030.