SALEM ? Prize-winning author Tom Wolfe, perhaps best known for his book, “The Right Stuff,” which chronicled the fledgling days of NASA, is scheduled to speak at Salem State College on Thursday.Wolfe, who often dresses in a trademark white suit, is the final lecturer in this season’s Salem State Series, currently celebrating its 25th year. The author, among the most requested speakers in the U.S., is often described as the father of New Journalism.Many turns of phrase coined by Wolfe are now part the American language, such as “the right stuff,” “radical chic,” “good ol’ boy,” and “the Me Generation.”With the publication of his first book, “The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine Flake Streamline Baby” in 1965, Wolfe secured his place as a contemporary literary force with which to be reckoned. In rapid succession, Wolfe published “The Right Stuff,” “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test,” “The Pump House Gang,” “Radical Chic and Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers,” “From Bauhaus to Our House,” “Bonfire of the Vanities” and “A Man in Full” ? all best sellers.In his latest, “I Am Charlotte Simmons,” Wolfe takes on the world ofacademia.Wolfe won the 1979 American Book Award for general non-fiction for “The Right Stuff,” his account of the early days of space exploration by NASA and its test pilot jockeys. He also won the Harold D. Vursell Memorial Award from The American Institute of Arts and Letters and the Columbia Journalism Award for distinguished service in the field of journalism in 1980.The presentation begins at 8 p.m. in the college’s O’Keefe Sports Center, 225 Canal Street. The author will be speaking on “The Third Millennium and the Spirit of the Age.”The most recent speaker series also presented former President George H. W. Bush and baseball legend Cal Ripken Jr.For tickets, call (978) 542-7555 on Monday through Friday, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., or for more information email [email protected]. The speaker schedule is also posted online at www.salemstate.edu/series.