Alice McDermott is an accomplished American novelist and Professor of the Humanities at Johns Hopkins University. She was born in Brooklyn, New York, on June 27, 1953, and attended St. Boniface School in Elmont, Long Island, NY, Sacred Heart Academy in Hempstead, NY, the State University of New York at Oswego, where she received her BA in 1975, and the University of New Hampshire, where she obtained her MA in 1978.
McDermott has had a successful teaching career, having taught at various institutions such as the American University, UCSD, Hollins College, Lynchburg College, and the University of New Hampshire. She has also been a writer-in-residence at Hollins College and Lynchburg College in Virginia. Her short stories have been featured in several prestigious literary magazines, including Ms., Redbook, Mademoiselle, and Seventeen.
As a writer, McDermott has achieved significant recognition for her work. In 1987, she received the Whiting Writers Award, and she has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction on three separate occasions. Her novel Charming Billy, published in 1998, won her several awards, including the National Book Award for Fiction and the American Book Award. McDermott is currently the Richard A. Macksey Professor of the Humanities at Johns Hopkins University, where she continues to inspire and educate future generations of writers and scholars.