Michael and Anne Malone

It takes courage, imagination, and heart to tell a good story. Few people know that better than Mike Malone. For more than 31 years, Malone shared NIU?s story and made sure the university had a good story to tell. Malone was born and raised on the south side of Chicago and attended Marist High School before enrolling at the University of Illinois at Urbana. He majored in political science, played rugby, helped organize food service workers, and, most importantly, met his wife, Anne, while they both worked part-time washing dishes at Illini Tower. While at the U of I, Malone became interested in fiction writing and won several university-wide awards for his short stories, including the inaugural J. Kerker Quinn Prize. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree, with honors, in 1973. Based on his success as a fiction writer, he accepted an invitation to attend the Graduate Writers? Workshop at Bowling Green State University, where he received his M.F.A in 1975. During his tenure at NIU, Malone oversaw a variety of externally focused areas including publications, public relations, marketing, university events, alumni relations, and development. In 1998, he was named vice president of university advancement. In this position, he led efforts that saw giving from alumni and friends increase from $3 million a year in the 1990s to a height of $14 million a year?an increase of more than 350 percent. But before Malone was a director of publications or vice president, he was an inspiring teacher of literature, creative writing, and composition. He taught at the University of Illinois (both the Chicago and Urbana campuses) as a lecturer and vising assistant professor until 1980, when he began working professionally in the field of public relations and advertising. During this period he published dozens of stories, articles, and reviews in literary and mainstream periodicals including the Chicago Reader, Chicago Tribune Magazine, New Letters, Ascent, Sun-Times Book Week, and Kansas Quarterly. His stories have been anthologized in the P.E.N. Short Story Collections (Ballantine Books) and in the Itinerary Anthology, numbers 1 & 4. In 1983, he received the prestigious National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Award for fiction. He has won two awards from the Illinois Arts Council for Fiction and the P.E.N. Syndicated Fiction Award, when his short story was chosen by Russell Baker for syndication to U.S. and Canadian newspapers. Malone has been a longtime members of the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE), the association for professionals in the field of advancement work. He has won nine gold, nine silver, and eight bronze awards in CASE annual competitions. Malone also served on the CASE International Board of Directors, chaired the District 5 board, and received its Distinguished Service Award, the highest recognition offered. Of all the stories he?s written and shared throughout his life, Malone?s favorites are those he has lived with his family. He has been married to Anne since 1977. They have two daughters, Nora and Clare.