Andrew McCarthy, Travel Writer of the Year

Congrats to former Brat Pack actor—and Atlantic contributor—Andrew McCarthy, who was just named Travel Writer of the Year by the Society of American Travel Writers (guessing this is like a "Best Actor" Oscar for travel writers, though not sure if it includes a golden statue). I blogged about McCarthy's second career back in April:

As a dyed-in-the-wool Gen X'er, who grew up watching School House Rock, who still possesses an arsenal of Fletch one-liners deployable with a hair-trigger, who worked his way through the entire Douglas Coupland canon, who saw The Breakfast Club in the theater (and looks distressingly like one of its main characters--and not one of the cool ones), I want to pause for a moment to mention how incredibly cool, and slightly surreal, it is that Andrew McCarthy--always one of the cool ones--is now doing travel writing for The Atlantic.

Here's a great piece he did for us on the rugged west coast of Ireland.