Wilkes University’s Maslow Family Graduate Program in Creative Writing will host the Norman Mailer Society annual conference, “Mailer on Politics, Public Life, and Pop Culture,” from Oct. 10-12 on campus. Mailer, who died in 2007 at 84, was the founding chair of the writing program’s advisory board.
The conference, which honors the work of the late Pulitzer Prize-winning author, includes two full days of panels and events and concludes with a luncheon and keynote address on Saturday. The keynote address will be delivered by Mailer’s youngest daughter, Maggie Mailer, a New York-based painter. Susan Mailer will be reading from her new memoir, In Another Place, followed by a book signing on Thursday, Oct. 10.
The Norman Mailer Society is a non-profit organization founded in 2003 to celebrate Norman Mailer, author of 40 books and the chronicler of the American Century. It has approximately 300 members and meets annually for three days for panels, papers, films and informal discussion about the life, work and reputation of the late Mailer.
The conference includes a reception to preview the Norman Mailer Room and Collection on Oct. 10. This room, housed in the E.S. Farley Library at Wilkes University, is a replica of Mailer’s last studio in Provincetown that includes some of his private library, manuscripts and revisions, dating from 1984, and his studio furniture.
The conference also will feature a screening of the 1982 film The Executioner’s Song, based on Mailer’s Pulitzer Prize winning true-crime novel published in 1979. The film will be shown on Friday, Oct. 11 at 7 p.m. in the Dorothy Dickson Darte Center. The screening is free and open to the public.
A reading of selections from Mailer’s 1998 anthology, The Time of our Time, will be presented by students, alumni, and faculty of the Wilkes University Maslow Family Graduate Program in Creative Writing.
All conference attendees and participants, with the exception of guests, must be dues-paying members of the Norman Mailer Society in order to attend conference events. The film screening is free and open to the public.
Registration fees for the 2019 conference are as follows:
- 2019 Individual Registration Fee: $150
- 2019 Student Registration Fee: $75
- 2019 Guest Fee: $50
Membership Dues: Membership dues are as follows:
- Student: $10
- Individual: $30
- Couple: $35
- LIFE Individual: $300
Registration fees and membership dues can be paid at https://www.paypal.me/normanmailer, or can be sent to treasurer Jason Mosser at 3825 Lavista Road, F3, Tucker, Ga., 30084.
For more information visit, https://projectmailer.net/pm/Norman_Mailer_Society/Conference/2019_Wilkes-Barre,_PA.
