The Wilder Society is moving but staying in New Jersey, of which Wilder had fond memories from teaching at the Lawrenceville School during much of the 1920s. After serving ten years as Executive Director, Lincoln Konkle is stepping down (but will serve on the Board of Directors to mentor his successor and to continue as Editor of the Society Facebook page and website). Thus, the Board is delighted to announce that as of July 15 Mary English, Professor of Classics, will be the new Executive Director, and Montclair State University will be the new headquarters for the Thornton Wilder Society. Mary presented a paper at the First International Thornton Wilder Conference in 2008 and subsequently presented on Wilder at other conferences. Her article, “The Alcestiad: Thornton Wilder and the ‘Incommensurability of Things Human and Divine,’” was published in Jackson R. Bryer and Lincoln Konkle’s Thornton Wilder: New Perspectives (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2013: 334-359). Montclair State University not only has English, Theatre, and Classics Departments (Thornton would be pleased!), but it is also conveniently located only 14 miles from New York City, which should make it easier to bring NYC-based theatre artists, critics, and other writers to TWS events held at our new home. We anticipate the first such event will take place in the Spring of 2017, and we hope to enlist a renowned actor or two to do a reading from Wilder works, and to organize a Wilder discussion with the actor(s), a playwright, a director of a major Wilder production, a theatre critic, a novelist, and a fiction critic or scholar. Look for more details in the January 2017 Wilder FYI. In the meantime, please continue to support the Wilder Society with your dues, donations, and suggestions. (Only now we ask that you make your checks payable directly to the Thornton Wilder Society. See the revised membership form on the membership page of this website.) Thank you!
