Norman Mailer Society

Normal Mailer Society
Named after Norman Mailer
Formation 2003
Founders J. Michael Lennon, Barry H. Leeds, John Whalen-Bridge, and Robert Lucid
Founded at New York
Type Literary
Registration no. 201724164
Legal status 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization
Purpose To stimulate and encourage interest in the works of Norman Mailer.[1]
Membership (2017)
300
President
 Maggie McKinley
Vice President
 Gerald Lucas
Treasurer
 Jason Mosser
Secretary
 Marc Triplett
Neil Abercrombie, Robert Begiebing, Philip Bufithis, Christopher Busa, Justin Bozung, Ezra Cappell, Michael Chaiken, Bonnie Culver, Nicole DePolo, Carol Holmes, J. Michael Lennon, David Light, John Buffalo Mailer, Susan Mailer, Mark Olshaker, Denise Pappas, Lawrence Schiller, Lawrence Shainberg, Phillip Sipiora, Barbara Wasserman
Website http://normanmailersociety.org

The Norman Mailer Society is a non-profit literary society dedicated to American author Norman Mailer. The Society promotes the legacy of its eponym by holding an annual meeting of scholars and enthusiasts, publishing The Mailer Review, Project Mailer, and The NMS Podcast, awarding the Robert F. Lucid Award for the year's best scholarship, and encouraging continued interest in his work through all forms of media.

History

On July 11, 2002, J. Michael Lennon, Barry H. Leeds, and John Whalen-Bridge met Norman Mailer in Provincetown, Massachusetts to discuss the creation of the organization and gain Mailer's approval.[2] Mailer's biographer Robert Lucid could not attend, but he was one of the original quartet planning the Society. Having received Mailer's blessing, the Norman Mailer Society was officially founded in 2003.[3][4] During the American Literature Association in Cambridge on May 22, 2003, there was a planning meeting and interim officers elected for the Norman Mailer Society.[5] The Society had its inaugural meeting in Brooklyn, November 1, 2003, prompted in part as a reaction to Mailer's being dropped from the sixth edition of The Norton Anthology of American Literature because (according to the editors) "regular surveys of professors had shown declining use of Mr. Mailer's work".[6] Ron Rosenbaum, a New York Observer columnist, commented about the creation of the Society: "It's good to recognize people for their service while they're still around to appreciate it".[6]

Norman Mailer and Lawrence Schiller at NMS Conference 2006

Non-profit incorporation papers were filed in the State of New York, July 21, 2004, and were approved on September 14, 2004. The Society was incorporated in Windham, Connecticut in 2008.[7]

Members meet annually for paper presentations, panel discussions, film viewings, and other activities centered around the life and work of Norman Mailer.[1] In 2015, the Society reconvened in Provincetown, MA, for its annual conference, bringing together Society members, two of Mailer's daughters, and a reading of Tough Guys Don't Dance, Mailer's 1984 novel about his adopted hometown.[8][9] In addition to an annual meeting, the Society undertakes the following activities: the maintaining of a website devoted to matters of interest to the membership, including a newsletter and bibliography updated semi-annually.[1]

While still alive, Norman and Norris hosted Society members at post-conference parties, in 2003 at their house in Brooklyn Heights, and 2004 and 2005 at their Provincetown, MA residence.[10]

The Society sponsored the 50th Anniversary March on the Pentagon that Mailer wrote about in his Pulitzer-Prize-winning book Armies of the Night. Organized by the Vietnam Peace Commemoration Committee, the events took place on October 24, 2017 in Washington D.C.[11]

Plaque in Long Branch, NJ.

At the 2017 conference, J. Michael Lennon and David Light stepped down as President and Treasurer respectively. The Board unanimously elected former-VP Maggie McKinley, chair of the English Department at Harper College, as President.[12] Gerald Lucas (Professor of English at Middle Georgia State University) became VP and Jason Mosser (Professor of English at Georgia Gwinnett College) replaced Light as Treasurer.[13]

On May 23, 2018, the Society co-sponsored with the city of Long Branch the installation of a bronze memorial to Mailer and the Scarboro Hotel. The hotel was run and eventually owned by the Mailer family until it burned down in 1941. Members of the Society and the local community attended the unveiling ceremony where the beachside hotel used to stand.[14]

Publications

During the fourth annual conference in Provincetown (October 12–14, 2006), the membership voted to establish the brainchild of Phillip Sipiora, The Mailer Review, co-sponsored by the University of South Florida and edited by Sipiora and co-edited by Gerald Lucas.[15][16] It was originally proposed to publish twice a year and contain "objective articles, including scholarly, biographical, bibliographical and cultural essays [by] a wide range of writers and views".[17] Lennon said the journal will realize the Society's goal to produce "something that is going to be relevant and accessible".[18] The inaugural issue of Review arrived on newsstands on October 18, 2007. Dwight Garner called it a "fascinating testament to Mailer's headlong life."[19] Since, the Review has published one volume annually for a total of ten in 2017.

Created and hosted by Society member Justin Bozung, The Norman Mailer Society Podcast had its premiere episode in February 2015.[20] The Podcast is released twice monthly and features rare audio, interviews, analysis, and discussions about, as James Wolcott put it, the "wooly-bully exploits" of Norman Mailer.[21]

In spring 2018, the Society sponsored the publication of Library of America's two-volume boxed set Norman Mailer: the Sixties edited by J. Michael Lennon.[22] The set includes Four Books of the 1960s and Collected Essays of the 1960s.

Robert F. Lucid Award

In 2003, the Society established The Robert F. Lucid Award for Mailer Studies in recognition of Lucid's long and distinguished career as a Mailer scholar. The Lucid Award is given annually based on the recommendation of a Society committee. The winner receives a plaque and a $250 honorarium, and he or she is invited to speak at the conference.[23] Recent winners include Kevin Schultz for Buckley and Mailer: The Difficult Friendship that Shaped the Sixties in 2015,[24] the Society's own president J. Michael Lennon for The Selected Letters of Norman Mailer in 2014,[25][26] and again for Norman Mailer: A Double Life in 2013.[27]

Members

Society membership is open to all who share an interest in the Society's eponym.[1] The Society consists of officers, an Executive Board, and general members from diverse backgrounds. They range from enthusiasts, academics, creatives, and politicians to family members and contemporaries of Mailer's. As of 2017, the Society has approximately 300 international members.[13]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "NMS By-Laws". Norman Mailer Society. 2010. Retrieved 2017-09-09.
  2. ↑ Leeds, Barry H. (2008). "The Death of Norman Mailer: The Birth of the Norman Mailer Society". The Mailer Review. 2 (1): 135–37. Retrieved 2017-03-20.
  3. ↑ Wolcott, James (June 2010). "The Norman Conquests". Vanity Fair. Retrieved 2017-04-12.
  4. ↑ Light, David (2008). "From a Novelist in Waiting". The Mailer Review. 2 (1): 144–45. Retrieved 2017-09-09.
  5. ↑ Lennon, J. Michael (May 22, 2003). "Minutes of the First Meeting of the Norman Mailer Society". Project Mailer. The Norman Mailer Society. Retrieved 2017-03-20.
  6. 1 2 Lee, Flora (November 9, 2003). "Another Advertisement for Mailer". The New York Times. Retrieved 2017-04-10.
  7. ↑ "Norman Mailer Society in Windham, Connecticut (CT)". Nonprofit Facts. 2008. Retrieved 2017-09-09.
  8. ↑ Wood, Ann (September 25, 2015). "Mailer Society Brings 'Tough Guys' Home". Barnstable Patriot. Retrieved 2017-04-27.
  9. ↑ "P-town Hosts Mailer Conference". Boston Globe. New England Literary News. September 27, 2015.
  10. ↑ Lennon, J. Michael; Lennon, Donna Pedro (April 12, 2016). Lucas, Gerald R., ed. "2003". Norman Mailer: Works & Days. Project Mailer. Retrieved 2017-08-31.
  11. ↑ "October 20–21 Event: From Protest to Resistance". Vietnam Peace Commemoration Committee. 2017. Retrieved 2018-03-29.
  12. ↑ "Buzz". Provincetown Arts. 2018. p. 35. Retrieved 2018-09-25.
  13. 1 2 "About the Norman Mailer Society". normanmailersociety.org. Retrieved 2018-03-29.
  14. ↑ Dan Radel (May 23, 2018). "In Long Branch, a rock for native-son Norman Mailer". APP. USA Today. Retrieved 2018-05-23.
  15. ↑ Walker, Kevin (February 12, 2007). "Bull's-Eye". The Tampa Tribue. Bay Life, p. 1, 6–7. USF scores a coup with an agreement to publish a literary journal linked with iconic author Norman Mailer.
  16. ↑ "A New Journal for Mailer Studies". The Norman Mailer Society. May 18, 2007. Retrieved 2017-10-22.
  17. ↑ Walker, p. 6
  18. ↑ Walker, p. 7
  19. ↑ Garner, Dwight (October 18, 2007). "The Mailer Review". The New York Times. ArtsBeat. Retrieved 2017-03-15.
  20. ↑ "The Norman Mailer Society Podcast". Apple iTunes. Project Mailer.
  21. ↑ Wolcott, James (February 2016). "So, Like, Why Are We So Obsessed with Podcasts Right Now?". Vanity Fair. Retrieved 2017-08-27.
  22. ↑ "Norman Mailer: The Sixties (boxed set)". Library of America. March 2018. Retrieved 2018-03-29.
  23. ↑ Lennon, J. Michael (November 27, 2003). "To the Charter Members". NMS. The Norman Mailer Society. Retrieved 2017-08-27.
  24. ↑ Flood, Brian (February 27, 2017). "Historian Honored for 'Buckley and Mailer'" (Press release). UIC Today. Retrieved 2017-08-27.
  25. ↑ Lennon, J. Michael (2014). "Awards and Honors". J. Michael Lennon. Retrieved 2017-09-26.
  26. ↑ "Minutes of the 2016 Business Meeting of the Norman Mailer Society". NMS. The Norman Mailer Society. 2016. Retrieved 2017-10-22.
  27. ↑ "Robert F. Lucid Award for Mailer Studies". NMS. Norman Mailer Society. 2017. Retrieved 2017-09-01.
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