# Alice McDermott

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 |
| 1987 | That Night | Los Angeles Times Book Prize | Fiction | Finalist |
| 1987 | That Night | National Book Award | Fiction | Finalist |
| 1988 | That Night | PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction | — | Finalist |
| 1988 | That Night | Pulitzer Prize | Fiction | Finalist |
| 1992 | At Weddings and Wakes | Pulitzer Prize | Fiction | Finalist |
| 1998 | Charming Billy | National Book Award | Fiction | Won |
| 1999 | Charming Billy | American Book Award | — | Won |
| 2000 | Charming Billy | International Dublin Literary Award | — | Finalist |
| 2000 | Charming Billy | Women's Prize for Fiction | — | Finalist |
| 2002 | Child of My Heart: A Novel | International Dublin Literary Award | — | Longlisted |
| 2006 | After This | Pulitzer Prize | Fiction | Finalist |
| 2007 | After This | Audie Award | Literary/Classics | Finalist |
| 2013 | Someone | National Book Award | Fiction | Longlisted |
| 2013 | Someone | National Book Critics Circle Award | Fiction | Finalist |
| 2014 | Someone | Dayton Literary Peace Prize | — | Finalist |
| 2015 | Someone | International Dublin Literary Award | — | Shortlisted |
| 2017 | The Ninth Hour | Kirkus Prize | Fiction | Finalist |
| 2017 | The Ninth Hour | National Book Critics Circle Award | Fiction | Finalist |
| 2018 | The Ninth Hour | Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence | Fiction | Longlisted |
| 2018 | The Ninth Hour | Prix Femina étranger | — | Won |
| 2019 | The Ninth Hour | International Dublin Literary Award | — | Longlisted |
| 2024 | Absolution | Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award | — | Won |
| 2024 | Absolution | PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction | — | Finalist |

### 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.