About the Cormac McCarthy Society

Informally, The Cormac McCarthy Society began at The First Conference on Cormac McCarthy, held at Bellarmine College in Louisville, Kentucky in October of 1993. The Conference was organized by Bellarmine College's Wade Hall, a leading regional teacher and critic, and by Rick Wallach, then of New York University.

Formally, The Society was founded in 1995 as a State of Florida nonprofit educational organization by scholars and interested lay readers of McCarthy's works who had originally met at the conference in collusion with Marty Priola, Society Webmaster, who was then running a small independent Web site devoted to Cormac McCarthy.

The Society's stated purpose is "to further the scholarship and general appreciation of Cormac McCarthy's writing and to facilitate the gathering of scholars and enthusiastic lay readers alike who share a common interest in Cormac McCarthy and his work."

In 1998, the Society received a 501-(c)(3) designation as a tax-exempt non-profit educational organization from the Internal Revenue Service. As of this writing, we have members and correspondents in eleven countries on five continents.

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Society Officers

Dianne C. Luce
President
Midlands Technical College
William Spencer
Vice President
Delta State University
Rick Wallach, Secretary-Treasurer
University of Miami
Marty Priola
Assistant Secretary & Webmaster
David Holloway
Assistant Vice President for European Activities
University of Darbyshire, United Kingdom
John Wegner
Editor, The Cormac McCarthy Journal
Angelo State University
Edwin T. Arnold
President Emeritus
Appalachian State University

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Goals of the Society

The Cormac McCarthy Society strives to provide information about McCarthy and his work that is rarely available anywhere else. To that end:

We have consolidated the most extensive bibliographic resources on Cormac McCarthy in several languages, and we provide online précis and translations of the foreign language passages in his novels. These sections are revised on a regular basis.
We have arranged with various publishers to make books, videos and other materials about Cormac McCarthy's work available to Society members at considerable savings through our Society Bookshop, which also provides a convenient one-stop shopping resource for non-members.
We sponsor an online journal for original articles and news about McCarthy, which members may elect to receive as an annual hard-copy edition, and an online discussion forum where members may post their opinions and insights.

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Conferences

The Cormac McCarthy Society sponsors an annual Fall conference, which has historically been held in Texas on a biannual basis; we also hold panel sessions every Spring at the American Literature Association annual meetings, either in California (even years) or in a major east coast city (odd years).
We hold a European colloquy approximately every two years, with our next one tentatively scheduled for 2005.
We also hold occasional Summer conferences in Boone, North Carolina, at Appalachian State University, which focus on McCarthy's Appalachian works.

At these meetings, our members gather to present papers, exchange ideas, view special presentations, and generally enjoy the company of others with a shared interest in McCarthy (as well as fine literature in general). For more information about these meetings, see our Conferences section.

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Advocacy

The Society actively encourages and serves as a resource for scholars putting together sessions devoted to Cormac McCarthy's works at regional and national Modern Language Association Conferences and other literary or scholarly organizations and book fairs.

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Publications

Many of the currently available volumes of McCarthy criticism consist largely of papers and articles originally composed for Society conferences. The Society publishes occasional compilations of conference papers, an annual scholarly journal based on our online journal, and a twice-annual newsletter for Society members.

We also assist conference participants and other correspondents in publishing their own critical work in various literary and academic journals and as books through university presses and commercial publishers.

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Disclaimer

The Cormac McCarthy Society is an independent, membership-based organization of readers of Cormac McCarthy's work. We do not represent, nor are we in any way officially affiliated with, the author himself.

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Contacting Cormac McCarthy

The Cormac McCarthy Society respects the author's clearly expressed desire for privacy.

If you wish to contact him, please write to Mr. McCarthy care of his agent:

c/o Amanda Urban
International Creative Management
40 W. 57th St.
New York, NY 10019
(212) 556-5600

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Updated 09 Oct 2008