Wilkes University hosted the 22nd annual Norman Mailer Society Conference, “What Would Norman Mailer Say?” from Oct. 9-11. In connection with the conference presentations and discussions, the University dedicated the Mailer Archives in the E.S. Farley Library.
Norman Mailer’s creative work spanned novels, newsprint, magazine, stage and screen. He produced 39 books, including 11 novels, in addition to plays, screenplays and essays. Mailer was awarded the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for his 1968 work The Armies of the Night and earned a second Pulitzer Prize for The Executioner’s Song, published in 1979. Mailer passed away in 2007 at the age of 84.
The Mailer Archives adds to the author’s long and storied connection to Wilkes. He visited campus four times and, in 1995, received an honorary doctorate of humane letters. Mailer was the founding chair of the advisory board for the Maslow Family Graduate Program in Creative Writing, which celebrated its 20th anniversary this year.
The archives feature a recreation of Mailer’s studio in Provincetown, Massachusetts, and display the tools of the author’s trade. His work desk, lamp, pencils, files, research materials and handwritten drafts, as well as personal memorabilia, present an intimate glimpse into the private space where Mailer spent the last half of his writing career.
Donna and J. Michael Lennon, Wilkes professor emeritus, Mailer’s authorized biographer and friend, donated much of the collection, along with Lawrence Schiller, founder of The Norman Mailer Center.
As a token of thanks for Lennon’s many contributions of the author’s manuscripts to the archives, the library has named the files the “J. Michael Lennon collection of Norman Mailer’s Publication Research, 1948-2024.” With this addition, the Mailer Archives at Wilkes University features more of the author’s items than both Harvard University and the Provincetown Museum. The vast collection trails only that of the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin.
“It’s the second largest literary collection of Mailer documents in the world, and it’s at Wilkes,” said Lennon.
The dedication featured a ribbon cutting and tours of the archives, as well as remarks from Matt Hinton ’10, treasurer of the Norman Mailer Society. Brian Sacolic, director of the library, Suzanna Calev, archivist and public services librarian, the author’s son John Buffalo Mailer and David Ward, senior vice president and provost.
The conference closed on Saturday afternoon with a reading from Mailer’s last novel, The Castle in the Forest. The author’s research materials for the novel, as well as typed drafts and handwritten notes, can be found in the archives. Following the reading, guests attended a luncheon featuring remarks from journalist, editor and producer Rudy Langlais, who shared a decades-long creative collaboration and friendship with Mailer.
Bonnie Culver, professor emerita at Wilkes, and co-founder, with Lennon, of the creative writing program, was instrumental in organizing the conference. She found it to be an ideal combination of literary history and emerging scholarship. “The conference was the perfect storm of presentations of new work and the archives of Mailer’s work,” said Culver. “It was a celebration of Mailer’s life.”