Alice McDermott (born June 27, 1953) is an American writer and university professor. She is the author of nine novels and a collection of essays. For her 1998 novel Charming Billy she won an American Book Award and the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction and was a finalist for the International Dublin Literary Award and the Orange Prize. That Night, At Weddings and Wakes, and After This were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Her most recent novel, Absolution was awarded the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award.
From 2002 to 2019, McDermott was the Johns Hopkins University's Richard A. Macksey Professor of the Humanities.
Life McDermott was born in Brooklyn, New York. She attended St. Boniface School in Elmont, New York, on Long Island (1967), Sacred Heart Academy in Hempstead (1971), and the State University of New York at Oswego, receiving her BA in 1975, and received her MA from the University of New Hampshire in 1978. She is the recipient of several honorary degrees including Boston College, Georgetown University School of Continuing Studies, University of New Hampshire, SUNY Oswego, Mount St. Mary's University, La Salle University, Regis College, The College of the Holly Cross.
She has taught at UCSD and American University, has been a writer-in-residence at Lynchburg College and Hollins College in Virginia, and was lecturer in English at the University of New Hampshire. In 2012 she was the D'Angelo Scholar-in-Residence, St. John's University. From 2002 to 2019, McDermott was the Richard A. Macksey Professor of the Humanities at Johns Hopkins University. For two decades McDermott served on the faculty of Sewanee Writers Conference. Her short stories have appeared in Harper's Bazaar, Commonweal, The Sewanee Review, Ms., Redbook, Mademoiselle, The New Yorker, Good Housekeeping, and Seventeen. She has also published articles in The New York Times and The Washington Post.
McDermott lives outside Washington, D.C., with her husband, a neuroscientist, and three grown children. She is Catholic, though she once deemed herself "not a very good Catholic."
Awards and honors
Literary awards
Year Title Award Category Result Ref. 1987 That Night Los Angeles Times Book PrizeFiction National Book AwardFiction 1988 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction — Pulitzer Prize Fiction 1992 At Weddings and Wakes Pulitzer Prize Fiction 1998 Charming Billy National Book AwardFiction 1999 American Book Award— 2000International Dublin Literary Award— Women's Prize for Fiction — 2002 Child of My Heart: A Novel International Dublin Literary Award — 2006After This Pulitzer Prize Fiction 2007Audie AwardLiterary/Classics 2013Someone National Book Award Fiction National Book Critics Circle Award Fiction 2014Dayton Literary Peace Prize — 2015International Dublin Literary Award—2017The Ninth HourKirkus PrizeFiction National Book Critics Circle AwardFiction 2018 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence Fiction Prix Femina étranger — 2019International Dublin Literary Award— 2024 Absolution Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award — PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction—
Honors 1987 – Whiting Award 2004 – Gaudium Prize 2008 – Corrington Award for Literature 2010 – Fitzgerald Prize for Literary Excellence 2013 – Inducted into the New York Writers Hall of Fame 2015 – Mary McCarthy Award, Bard College 2019 – Seamus Heaney Award for Literature, Glucksman Ireland House 2024 – Inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters 2024 – Recipient of the Eugene O'Neil Lifetime Achievement Award
Selected works
Novels
Essays
References
External links
Alice McDermott on Goodreads Biography at BookBrowse.com Bibliography at FantasticFiction Alice McDermott at Library of Congress Authorities — with 14 catalog records Alice McDermott, The Art of Fiction No. 244, Paris Review, Fall 2019
Publisher profiles Profile at Commonweal Profile at The Sewanee Review Profile at Whiting Foundation
Reviews Profile at Book Marks Reviews by Kirkus After This Reviews at Metacritic