Education
Wilson graduated from Washington and Lee University and received a masters degree from the University of Virginia.
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Robert Wilson
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He is the editor of The American Scholar, the literary journal of the Phi Beta Kappa Society. He took that position in 2004, after having previously been the literary editor at Civilization magazine and the editor of Preservation magazine. Wilson has also written two biographies set in nineteenth century America, and he has edited a collection of essays from Preservation.
He worked at the Washington Post and at USA Today, where he was a book columnist as well as an editor. He was a founding literary editor at Civilization, a magazine published under the auspices of the Library of Congress. In 1996, Wilson became the editor of Preservation, the magazine of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
In 2004 Wilson briefly served as editor of the AARP Bulletin, then became the seventh editor of The American Scholar, six months after that journal had dismissed its prior editor, Anne Fadiman, in a widely publicized dispute over funding. Wilson took steps to increase the journal's focus on current events. Wilson lives in Manassas, Virginia.
Achievements
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Civilization won a National Magazine Award for General Excellence in 1996. Under Wilson, Preservation won a National Magazine Award for General Excellence in 1998. The American Scholar's writers have won a number of awards during Wilson's tenure, and the magazine has been a finalist for a National Magazine Award for General Excellence in 2009, 2012, 2014, and 2015.
