J. Michael Lennon

J. Michael Lennon is Emeritus Professor of English at Wilkes University. He is currently editing Norman Mailer's selected letters and writing his authorized biography.

Lennon was appointed to write the authorized biography of two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Norman Mailer by the Mailer estate in December 2006, following the death of Robert F. Lucid. He is a former professor of English at Sangamon State University, now the University of Illinois at Springfield and Wilkes University in Pennsylvania. While at Wilkes he held various offices, including Vice President of the university and chairman of the Humanities Division, as well as co-director of the Wilkes University low-residency MA/MFA in Creative Writing, a program which he founded in 2004, along with current Program Director Bonnie Culver. He is also the current President and one of the founders of The Norman Mailer Society, a literary society dedicated to promoting interest and scholarship on the works of Norman Mailer. He has published and edited many books and articles, and is currently based in Massachusetts.

Lennon published "Critical Essays on Norman Mailer" in 1986. He has edited "Norman Mailer's Letters on an American Dream" (2004) and "Conversations with Norman Mailer" (1988). He co-authored "On God: An Uncommon Conversation" (2008) with Mailer. He is an executor of Mailer's estate and one of the architects of his archive.