Norman Mailer working in the writing studio on the third floor of his Provincetown, Massachusetts, home in 2003. Here, he is writing the work, Castle in the Forest.
Courtesy of the Norman Mailer Writers Colony Archives
Mailer Fellows on a tour of Mailer’s writing room during the summer session of 2009, the Colony’s first. Though the fellows study inside Mailer’s home as part of the Colony experience, Mailer’s writing studio is usually locked and closed to visitors.
Courtesy of the Norman Mailer Writers Colony Archives
Mailer fellows and participants in the Writers Colony workshops have the unique opportunity to study writing right inside Mailer’s former living room. Here, an instructor teaches a small session at a table where Mailer himself sat.
Courtesy of the Norman Mailer Writers Colony Archives
As part of the Colony experience, participants gain access to Mailer’s personal taste and history, including his living room wall full of photographs of Mailer with writers and world leaders. This wall includes shots of Mailer with Fidel Castro, Allen Ginsberg, Truman Capote, and Kurt Vonnegut, among others.
Courtesy of the Norman Mailer Writers Colony Archives
Norman Mailer’s house, where the Writers Colony takes place, is one of only two brick buildings in Provincetown, and is located only 300 yards from where the pilgrims originally landed on American soil. Mailer purchased the house in 1980 after renting it for several years in the late 1970s.
Courtesy of the Norman Mailer Writers Colony Archives
One of the most exciting aspects of the Writers Colony is that fellows get to live just as Mailer did, eating and enjoying coffee in his former kitchen, writing in his living room, and roaming his property.
Courtesy of the Norman Mailer Writers Colony Archives
Mailer’s writing studio has been preserved exactly as he left it before he passed away in 2007. It remains under lock and key today, but Colony fellows and distinguished visitors have the chance to enter and see how Mailer organized his research and writing life.
Courtesy of the Norman Mailer Writers Colony Archives
The Norman Mailer Writers Colony became incorporated as a public nonprofit organization in 2008—a date marked by the plaque that hangs outside the house.
Courtesy of the Norman Mailer Writers Colony Archives
On Tuesday night, Utah State University student John Gilmore will receive the first annual Norman Mailer National College Award for Nonfiction for his essay, Final Cascade. Gilmore receives $10,000 and a scholarship to attend the Writers Colony next summer.
Courtesy of the Norman Mailer Writers Colony Archives
Norman Mailer and his longtime friend and collaborator Lawrence Schiller, posing after returning from Moscow, where they worked with former KGB officers on a story. Schiller went on to found the Norman Mailer Writers Colony in his friend’s memory.
Courtesy of the Norman Mailer Writers Colony Archives
Though Mailer would later change his position on Fidel Castro, he originally admired the Cuban leader for his ability to unite his people for a cause, and wrote several essays praising him.
Norman Mailer and his wife, Norris Church Mailer, posing for what Lawrence Schiller says became “their favorite photograph together.” The photo was taken right after Mailer completed writing The Executioner’s Song, his 1980 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel.
Courtesy of the Norman Mailer Writers Colony Archives
Mailer, smoking a cigar after the publication of 1959’s Advertisements for Myself, a collection of Mailer’s shorter works from his Harvard days.
Courtesy of the Norman Mailer Writers Colony Archives
Mailer with Allen Ginsberg and Ginsberg’s companion, poet Peter Orlovsky, at a cocktail party. Mailer was a great admirer of Ginsberg’s, praising his ability to constantly challenge authority.
Courtesy of the Norman Mailer Writers Colony Archives
Mailer often hosted writers for conversations in his living room, where the Colony takes place today. Here, in his late life, he speaks with his dear friend, Pulitzer Prize winner William Kennedy, who will present the College Writing Award at Tuesday night’s gala.
Courtesy of the Norman Mailer Writers Colony Archives
This signed photograph of writers Mailer, Gore Vidal, and Kurt Vonnegut, hangs in the Mailer living room. Though the public opinion of the three friends was that they were always at odds with one another, they were in fact very close—and chose to document their friendship on celluloid.
Courtesy of the Norman Mailer Writers Colony Archives
