Mark Olshaker
Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker and author, co-writer of the Mindhunter books with John Douglas; a friend of Mailer's, president of the Norman Mailer Society c. 2010–2013, and a regular Mailer Review contributor.
Mark Olshaker, born in Washington, D.C., on 28 February 1951, is a novelist, nonfiction author, and documentary filmmaker (“Mark Olshaker,” Wikipedia). He began as a journalist in Washington, and in 1994 he won an Emmy as writer of the animated series based on David Macaulay’s architecture books. He is best known for the books he has written with the former FBI profiler John Douglas, beginning with Mindhunter, and he co-wrote Deadliest Enemy (2017) with the epidemiologist Michael Osterholm (Society conference biographies, 2009 and 2016).
Mailer
Olshaker called Mailer “my friend Norman” (From the NMS President, 2012). When the Society announced Law & Disorder (2013), his book with Douglas, it said that its themes of justice and prejudice were subjects he had “discussed frequently with Norman,” among them Gary Gilmore and Mailer’s involvement with Jack Henry Abbott (Law & Disorder). He has been a steady contributor to The Mailer Review:
- “Let Me Now Praise Famous Men,” a tribute in the 2008 memorial issue (Bibliography 2008)
- “The Crime of His Time,” on Oswald’s Tale (2009) (Bibliography 2009)
- “The Memorable Norris,” for Norris Church Mailer (2011) (Bibliography 2011)
- “Words with Friends,” on J. Michael Lennon‘s Norman Mailer: A Double Life (2013) (Bibliography 2013)
- “Walking into the Zeitgeist,” an interview with Jules Feiffer (2014) (Bibliography 2014)
- “Kaufmann in Orbit,” a review of Bramble, Infant Martian (2015) (Bibliography 2015)
In the Society
Olshaker was elected to the Board of the Norman Mailer Society at its October 2007 meeting (2007 minutes). In 2008 he sat on the committee planning the 2009 conference in Washington, D.C., and he served as that conference’s program co-chair (2008 conference). By November 2010 he was the Society’s president. He signed its notice of Norris Church Mailer’s death in that office (Norris Church Mailer, 1949–2010) and gave the opening remarks at the 2010 Sarasota conference (2010 program). He presided at the Executive Board and business meetings of 2011–2013. In 2012 he wrote as president to support John Buffalo Mailer‘s campaign against the sex advertisements carried by the Village Voice’s classifieds site. He resigned the presidency at the October 2013 business meeting and seconded Lennon’s nomination to succeed him (2013 minutes).
As past president he stayed on the Board; he was re-elected in 2013, 2016, and 2019. In 2016 he moved that the Board nominate Maggie McKinley as Lennon’s successor (2016 Executive Board minutes). In 2017 he and Lennon attended the Washington commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the March on the Pentagon (2017 minutes). At the conferences he chaired the 2016 panel “Putative Comments on the 2016 Election by the Late Norman Mailer” (2016 conference), spoke on “Mailer and Violence” in 2019, and in 2022 chaired “Mailer’s Jewishness” and spoke on “Mailer and the Fragility of Democracy” (conference programs). The Society’s website still lists him as a Board member.