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CCSU Event Will Remember Literary Giant Norman Mailer
Program Features a Mailer Friend, Biographer, and Son of Author 

NEW BRITAIN – April 16 2008 – A forum featuring three of Norman Mailer’s closest confidants is scheduled to take place April 24 at Central Connecticut State University.  Free and open to the public, the event, titled “Remembering Norman Mailer:  A Conversation with Barry Leeds, J. Michael Lennon and John Buffalo Mailer,” will be held from 4-6 p.m. in Founders Hall, located in Lawrence J. Davidson Hall of the CCSU campus.

Dr. Barry Leeds, CSU Distinguished Professor Emeritus of English, is Vice-President of the Norman Mailer Society and a longtime friend of the iconic author. Over the course of his career, he has written extensively on Mailer's life and art. His books include The Structured Vision of Norman Mailer  (NYU, 1969) and The Enduring Vision of Norman Mailer (PBS, 2002), and he has published over two hundred articles, reviews, and anthology chapters. He has lectured at universities and conferences nation-wide and internationally, and has been interviewed by a variety of media: television, radio, and newspapers. 

Dr. J. Michael Lennon is Norman Mailer’s archivist, editor, and authorized biographer and has written/edited several books about him, including (with Donna Pedro Lennon) Norman Mailer: Works and Days (2000), Critical Essays on Norman Mailer (1986), Conversations With Norman Mailer (1988), The Spooky Art: Some Thoughts on Writing (2003) and numerous essays in journals and magazines.  His latest book, co-authored with Mailer, is On God: An Uncommon Conversation (October 2007). Lennon is also editing Mailer’s letters, to be published in 2008. His work has appeared in New Yorker, Paris Review, Playboy, New York, Modern Fiction Studies, New England Review, Narrative, and Journal of Modern Literature, among others. Lennon’s documentary, James Jones: From Reveille to Taps, was shown on PBS in 1985. He is Emeritus Vice President for Academic Affairs and Emeritus Professor of English at Wilkes University, where he continues to teach in the MFA Program, and is current President of the Norman Mailer Society.

The third panelist is Mailer’s son John Buffalo Mailer.  He is the Director of Development for Tar Films, the film and documentary division of Tar Art Media. While still in college, the younger Mailer published his first novella, Hello Herman, in The Reading Room, vol. 1, Great Marsh Press in 2000. He is a founder of Back House Productions, the resident theater company of The Drama Bookshop’s Arthur Seelan Theater, which has developed, among many plays, the recent hit musical, In The Heights.  In 2001, John’s first play, an adaptation of Hello Herman, had its New York Premiere at the Grove Street Playhouse. His second play, Crazy Eyes, had its world premiere in Athens, Greece in 2005. John took the position of Executive Editor for High Times magazine from 2004-2005 to help re-launch the notorious publication. He is the co-author of The Big Empty (Nation Books, February ‘06) a book of discussions between him and his father, Mailer, on topics ranging from “protest to poker and everything in between.”  John Mailer  is a member of The Dramatists’ Guild, Actor’s Equity Association, The Playwright/Director’s Unit of The Actors Studio and has lectured at the University of Notre Dame, Wesleyan, the University of Athens, Syracuse University, The New York Society for Ethical Culture, The Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, and has appeared on Hannity and Combs, Air America, Democracy Now, WNYC, and CSPAN’s Book TV.  He is the author of several screenplays, including Blind, which is being produced by Mike Nichols. 

Free parking is available in campus parking lots and garages. 


For further information contact: Dr. Robert M. Dowling, Associate Professor of English at 860-832-2741; dowlingrom@ccsu.edu

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