Norman Mailer Society
A scholarly organization devoted to the study of Norman Mailer's life and work. With the University of South Florida it jointly sponsors The Mailer Review, published annually since 2007, and it hosts an annual conference. Mailer scholars associated with this project — including Maggie McKinley (vice president c. 2017, later president) and J. Michael Lennon (chair of The Mailer Review's editorial board) — are members.
The Norman Mailer Society is a learned society dedicated to scholarship on Mailer’s writing and career. It co-sponsors The Mailer Review with the University of South Florida (published annually since 2007) — the venue whose annual bibliographies, alongside new and posthumous publications, feed this project’s post-2016 register (see About this project). Maggie McKinley served as the society’s vice president around the time of her Understanding Norman Mailer (2017) and by 2021 was its president, and J. Michael Lennon chairs the editorial board of The Mailer Review.
Annual conference
The Society has convened an annual conference since 2003, growing out of a half-day meeting at the 2002 American Literature Association conference. The early gatherings (2003–2008) overlapped Mailer’s own lifetime and were held chiefly in Provincetown; later conferences have moved among sites tied to Mailer’s life — Brooklyn, Long Branch (his birthplace), Austin (the Harry Ransom Center archive), Wilkes-Barre, and elsewhere. Individual conferences are recorded as events on the relevant Days year pages; program scans are archived as ephemera.
| No. | Year | Location | Dates | Theme |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ½ | 2002 | Cambridge, MA | May 22 | ALA meeting (half-day) |
| 1 | 2003 | Brooklyn, NY | Nov 1 | Inaugural conference |
| 2 | 2004 | Provincetown, MA | Nov 12–13 | — |
| 3 | 2005 | Provincetown, MA | Nov 5–6 | — |
| 4 | 2006 | Provincetown, MA | Oct 12–14 | The Political Norman Mailer |
| 5 | 2007 | Provincetown, MA | Oct 11–14 | Mailer the Novelist |
| 6 | 2008 | Provincetown, MA | Oct 16–19 | Norman Mailer: Memory and the Afterlife |
| 7 | 2009 | Washington, DC | Oct 23–24 | Washington Intersections: Ideology, Culture, and Biography |
| 8 | 2010 | Sarasota, FL | Nov 4–6 | Mailer and Hemingway |
| 9 | 2011 | Austin, TX | Nov 9–12 | Mailer and Jones |
| 10 | 2012 | Provincetown, MA | Oct 10–13 | Norman Mailer: Achievements and Paradoxes |
| 11 | 2013 | Sarasota, FL | Oct 23–27 | Norman Mailer at 90: Novelist, Journalist, Essayist, Filmmaker, and Much More |
| 12 | 2014 | Wilkes-Barre, PA | Oct 26–28 | Norman Mailer: Continuing His Legacy |
| 13 | 2015 | Provincetown, MA | Sept 30–Oct 3 | — |
| 14 | 2016 | Long Branch, NJ | Sept 28–Oct 1 | Return to Long Branch |
| 15 | 2017 | Sarasota, FL | Oct 26–28 | — |
| 16 | 2018 | Macon, GA | Oct 25–27 | 50th Anniversary of The Armies of the Night; 70th Anniversary of The Naked and the Dead |
| 17 | 2019 | Wilkes-Barre, PA | Oct 10–12 | Mailer on Politics, Public Life, and Pop Culture |
| 18 | 2020 | Virtual | Oct 15–17 | Mailer and the Spirit of Democracy |
| 19 | 2022 | Long Branch, NJ | June 8–10 | “The Prisoner of Sex” Turns 50: Mailer on Gender and Sexuality |
| 20 | 2023 | Austin, TX | April 20–22 | Mailer’s Centenary Celebration |
| 21 | 2024 | St. Pete Beach, FL | Nov 14–16 | — (open CFP; keynote David Margolick) |
| 22 | 2025 | Wilkes-Barre, PA | Oct 9–11 | What Would Mailer Say? |
| 23 | 2026 | St. Pete Beach, FL | Nov 4–7 | Mailer at the Bicentennial |
No conference was held in 2021. The 2024 conference (Sirata Beach Resort; keynote David Margolick) and the 2025 conference are drawn from the Society’s website; the 2025 meeting at Wilkes University was co-sponsored by the University and marked by the grand opening of the Mailer Collection in the Farley Library Archives (the Norman Mailer Archives at Wilkes). The 2026 conference (Sirata Beach Resort; chair Enid Stubin) is drawn from the call for papers. Program scans are archived as ephemera for every conference with a surviving program — 2003, 2005–2010, 2012–2019, and 2023–2025 (no program is held for 2004, 2011, or 2022).