Tom Mack

Tom Mack began his long career as a member of the English Department at the University of South Carolina Aiken in 1976; he currently holds the rank of Distinguished Professor Emeritus.

For his "enviable record of teaching excellence as well as outstanding performance in scholarship and public service," the USC Board of Trustees awarded him the prestigious Carolina Trustee Professorship in 2008. His classroom work was recognized by his receipt of the Amoco Foundation Outstanding Teaching Award and the 2010 SC Center for the Book Award in Teaching. In the scholarly arena, he published over 100 articles and chapters about American literature and American cultural history and eight books. Furthermore, since 1990, he has contributed a weekly column in the AIKEN STANDARD on a wide range of topics in the humanities. For his work as a cultural affairs columnist, he received the 2013 Media Award from the Greater Augusta Arts Council.

Dr. Mack is the founding editor of THE OSWALD REVIEW, the first international refereed journal of undergraduate research in the discipline of English; all articles published in the journal are available in digitalized form on library databases hosted by EBSCO Publishing and the USC libraries: www.scholarcommons.sc.edu/tor/.

Dr. Mack is currently nominations coordinator of the board of governors of the South Carolina Academy of Authors, the organization responsible for managing the state's literary hall of fame. He also served six years on the board of SC Humanities, South Carolina's affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities (he was board chair from 2019-2021).

He has nine books in print: CIRCLING THE SAVANNAH, HIDDEN HISTORY OF AIKEN COUNTY, and HIDDEN HISTORY OF AUGUSTA (Arcadia Publishing/The History Press), A SHARED VOICE and SOUTHERN VOICES: 50 CONTEMPORARY POETS (Lamar University Literary Press), THE SOUTH CAROLINA ENCYCLOPEDIA GUIDE TO SOUTH CAROLINA WRITERS (University of South Carolina Press), MAGIC, MYSTERY, MADNESS and DANCING ON BARBED WIRE (Angelina River Press), and 100 THINGS TO DO IN AUGUSTA GEORGIA BEFORE YOU DIE (Reedy Press).

A SHARED VOICE was selected as a 2013 FOREWORD MAGAZINE Book of the Year Award Finalist in the short fiction category.

He is also an art reviewer for the POST AND COURIER/FREE-TIMES. His reviews for this weekly newspaper in Columbia, SC have been honored by the South Carolina Press Association at that organization's annual conference.

In 2014, in recognition of his willingness to share his "knowledge of the historical, literary, and cultural threads woven tightly into the fabric of our collective being," Tom Mack received the Governor's Award in the Humanities at a special luncheon hosted by the Humanities Council SC at the Columbia Hilton Hotel and Conference Center.