Thomas Mallon, acclaimed author and GW faculty member, will be among the newest members of one of nation’s most prestigious honorary societies: the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.
Dr. Mallon will be one of 220 new members to be inducted in the fall, the academy announced earlier this week. The 2012 class also includes winners of the Pulitzer Prize, MacArthur and Guggenheim fellowships, Kennedy Center Honors, and Grammy, Emmy, Academy and Tony awards. GW President Steven Knapp and Martha Finnemore, university professor of political science and international affairs, were among last year’s inductees.
“I’m very pleased and surprised to be in such wonderful company,” said Dr. Mallon.
In addition to being a leading honorary society, the academy is also a center for independent policy research. Members contribute to academy publications and studies of science and technology policy, energy and global security, social policy and American institutions, the humanities and culture, and education.
“Election to the academy is both an honor for extraordinary accomplishment and a call to serve,” said American Academy of Arts & Sciences President Leslie C. Berlowitz. “We look forward to drawing on the knowledge and expertise of these distinguished men and women to advance solutions to the pressing policy challenges of the day.”
Dr. Mallon is the author of eight books of fiction, including “Henry and Clara,” “Bandbox,” “Fellow Travelers” and the recently published “Watergate: A Novel.”
His nonfiction works include “Stolen Words,” “A Book of One’s Own” and “Mrs. Paine’s Garage.” His work appears in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly and The New York Times Book Review.
Dr. Mallon earned a Ph.D. in English and American literature from Harvard University in 1978. He is a past recipient of the Guggenheim and Rockefeller fellowships, a National Book Critics Circle awardee for reviewing, and winner of the Vursell prize of the American Academy of Arts and Letters for distinguished prose style. He has been literary editor of Gentlemen’s Quarterly and deputy chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
“I am thrilled to learn of Tom’s induction into this prestigious honor society and proud to count him as a member of our team,” said Columbian College of Arts and Sciences Dean Peg Barratt. “We are so appreciative of the role he plays in sparking the imagination of our students while continuing his work as an accomplished and successful writer.”
Dr. Mallon has been director of creative writing at George Washington since fall 2010. “It’s a wonderful time for the creative writing program here at GW,” he said. “Our recent majors have just had a bumper crop of acceptances into top graduate programs, and we look forward to reading a whole shelf’s worth of their books in the next decade.”
The new class will be inducted at a ceremony on Oct. 6 at the academy’s headquarters in Cambridge, Mass.