Conference 2025
What Would Mailer Say?
22nd Annual Conference of the Norman Mailer Society
October 9–11, 2026
Wilkes University, Wilkes-Parre, PA
Come October, we gather once more—not merely to remember a man, but to provoke his ghost. The Norman Mailer Society invites you to Wilkes University in the scrappy, resilient heart of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, for three days of intellectual sparring, literary communion, and the unruly joy of ideas let loose.
This year we ask the question we should’ve been asking all along: What would Norman Mailer say? About our plastic politics, our digital delusions, our trembling republic and the algorithms that watch us sleep. About masculinity, femininity, the soul of the artist, and the price of daring to speak when silence is safe. We won't answer it neatly—Mailer hated neat answers. But we will wrestle with it, and maybe, just maybe, feel him wrestle back.
Expect panels and papers, voices raised and minds changed, drinks poured and truths told. Expect disagreement. Expect revelation. Above all, expect to feel alive in the way literature once promised—and still can.
So come. Say your piece. Be heard. Mailer would have wanted it no other way.
Jerry Lucas
Submit a Proposal
The following form will ask you for a 250–300-word proposal and a short biography (100–200 words). If you have a proposal for something other than a paper for a panel, you might reach out to us at normanmailersociety [at] gmail [dot] com.
Hotel Information
Holiday Inn, Wilkes Barre—East Mountain
The conference hotel is the Holiday Inn Wilkes-Barre – East Mountain, just a 10-minute drive from Wilkes University. A block of rooms has been reserved for Norman Mailer Society members at the special rate of $110 per night, excluding taxes. Use the code NMS when booking.
Or call 1-570-822-1011 and mention the NMS group rate.