Clinton Reilly Obit

Clinton Reilly

1947 - 2026 

He was not on the list.

Clinton Reilly

01/13/1947 - 07/18/2026

Clint Reilly - a Bay Area milkman's eldest son who left a Roman Catholic seminary three years short of the priesthood, poured his zeal into politics, and went on to pioneer the modern American campaign - died surrounded by family on July 18 in San Francisco. He was 79.

Mr. Reilly launched a generation of California leaders, and then improbably reinvented himself as one of San Francisco's foremost civic patrons, philanthropists and newspaper owners.

Yet, the seminary never entirely released him.

Mr. Reilly entered at 14 and spent nine years studying for the priesthood before leaving in 1969. He often explained afterward that he had wanted to "help make history, not simply bless it." But the departure proved less a break than a translation. In Catholicism, he liked to say, the priest is not the leader but the facilitator of leaders. Across more than five decades, he carried that vocation into politics, business, philanthropy and journalism, using campaigns, buildings, lawsuits, newspapers and scholarships in pursuit of what he called the greatest act of charity: helping to build a just society.

His first career transformed American politics.

In 1982, he founded Clinton Reilly Campaigns, building what The New York Times called the nation's most successful political consulting firm outside Washington. His clients included Dianne Feinstein, Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Boxer and Richard Riordan. The firm's innovations, from sophisticated voter targeting to integrated campaign strategy, became standard practice throughout the industry.

At the height of his success, he walked away.

In 1995, at 48, he married Janet Koewler, a journalist and public relations executive he had met through the Riordan campaign, and purchased the landmark Merchants Exchange Building in San Francisco's Financial District. Around it, he assembled a remarkable civic enterprise: historic buildings, event venues, restaurants, publications, the Nob Hill Gazette and eventually the San Francisco Examiner.

The newspaper represented unfinished business.

When Hearst sought to consolidate newspaper ownership in the Bay Area in 2000, Mr. Reilly sued in federal court to preserve media competition. He lost the case but forced testimony that exposed troubling conduct surrounding the sale and helped ensure the Examiner survived. Six years later, he sued again over another proposed newspaper consolidation, prevailing in a settlement that unwound the arrangement.

In 2021, two decades after first going to court to save it, he purchased the San Francisco Examiner. The newspaper whose fate he had once fought for as a citizen now belonged to him.

Those who knew only his public victories often missed the harder edges of his life. The defining event of his childhood was loss.

Born in Oakland on Jan. 13, 1947, Mr. Reilly was the eldest of ten children of Joseph and Bess Reilly. He came from a family with deep San Francisco roots: His father and grandfather were native San Franciscans. His father delivered milk for Berkeley Farms, while his mother spent nearly a quarter century working concessions at the Oakland Coliseum. The family had little money but abundant affection.

When Clint was 12, his beloved younger sister Jill died of a brain tumor. Soon afterward, he announced he would become a priest. Forty years later, he gave his first daughter her name.

The seminary shaped him intellectually as well as spiritually. Under Monsignor Eugene Boyle, the legendary social-justice priest who remained his lifelong mentor, he immersed himself in the civil-rights movement and the fight against poverty before leaving three years short of ordination.

That Christmas he wrote his parents a seven-page letter describing himself as "a restless man," promising to exhaust himself in service to others and to earn enough money to make that service possible.

He spent the next half century keeping that promise.

His second act was defined less by business success than by philanthropy.

As the financial crisis engulfed San Francisco, he and Janet each founded organizations that reflected their shared belief in opportunity. She created Clinic by the Bay, providing free medical care to the working uninsured. He founded Bay Scholars, which grew from ten scholarships into one of the region's largest privately funded scholarship programs, helping hundreds of students attend rigorous Catholic high schools and become, in many cases, the first in their families to graduate from college.

He read every scholarship application himself.

His generosity reached throughout the city: Catholic Charities, SFMOMA, the Asian Art Museum, Presidio Tunnel Tops, UC Berkeley's Matsui Center for Politics and Public Service, and dozens of civic institutions. Time and again, when others doubted San Francisco's future, Mr. Reilly doubled down on the city.

His greatest investment was always in its people.

In addition to his wife Janet, he is survived by their daughters, Jill and Ava Reilly; his mother, Bess Reilly; his siblings; and numerous nieces and nephews.

A memorial service will be held at St. Ignatius Parish, 650 Parker Avenue in San Francisco, on Monday, August 3rd at 10:00 am. Family and friends are invited to attend and celebrate a life spent in service to San Francisco.

In lieu of flowers, memorial donations in Clint's name can be made to Bay Scholars or Clinic by the Bay.

Donald E. Newhouse obit

Donald E. Newhouse, son of Samuel I. Newhouse, dies at 96

 

He was not on the list.

Donald Newhouse, former leader of Advance Publication’s newspaper division and son of Samuel I. Newhouse Sr., died Tuesday at 96 at his New Jersey estate, nj.com first reported. Donald’s son Steven Newhouse confirmed that the cause of death was lymphoma, The New York Times reported.

Both Donald and his brother Samuel I. Newhouse Jr. attended Syracuse University and left college early to join their father’s company, the Times reported. After Donald left SU, he became a circulation manager at The Long Island Press.

Samuel I. Newhouse Sr. purchased the Staten Island Advance in 1922 and began to expand his privately held media conglomerate from there. Donald and his older brother, who died in 2017, inherited the empire after their father’s death in 1979.

In 1964, after a gift from Samuel I. Newhouse Sr., SU opened the Newhouse I building. Seven years later, in 1971, the Newhouse School of Public Communications was officially formed when SU’s School of Journalism merged with its television and radio academic program, named in honor of the school’s main benefactor. The S.I. Newhouse Foundation donated $15 million in 2003 to fund the construction of Newhouse 3.

Donald announced in 2020 that the foundation would pledge $75 million to the Newhouse School, the largest gift in SU’s history.

In 2024, Donald returned to SU to unveil the Newhouse Family Plaza during the Newhouse School’s 60th anniversary celebrations.

“I am fortunate to have the chance, in the same month that I celebrate my 95th birthday, to look back with overwhelming pride at the record of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. It is one of the great joys of my life,” Donald said at the event.

Advance Publications, through its subsidiary Condé Nast, runs several magazines, including The New Yorker, Architectural Digest and Wired, in addition to media organizations across the country. Donald, however, ran the newspaper subsidiary, which included large papers like The Oregonian and The Plain Dealer.

Although he maintained the title of president, Donald stepped back from Advance Publications’ operations in the mid-2000s, the Times reported. He instead put effort into research and awareness of frontotemporal degeneration, a form of dementia that his wife Susan Marley died from.

“Donald Newhouse was always clear and confident about his values as an owner and as a newspaperman,” Sandra Mims Rowe, leader of The Oregonian from 1993-2010, said. “Newspapers were in his DNA, and it showed.”

He owned Advance Publications. It was founded in 1922 by his father, Samuel Irving Newhouse Sr., and its properties include Condé Nast (publisher of such magazines as Vogue, Tatler, Vanity Fair, and The New Yorker), dozens of newspapers across the U.S. (including The Star-Ledger, The Plain Dealer, and The Oregonian), a stake in cable company Charter Communications, and a stake in Warner Bros. Discovery. According to Forbes, he had an estimated net worth of $11 billion as of June 2024. He resided in New York City.

Newhouse was born in New York City to a Jewish family. Newhouse's father, Samuel Irving Newhouse Sr., was born on the Lower East Side of Manhattan and began the family media business. His mother, Mitzi Epstein, was an arts patron and philanthropist who grew up in an upper middle class family on the Upper West Side, the daughter of a silk tie importer. Newhouse was included on The Jerusalem Post's list of the world's 50 richest Jews in 2010

Ted Turner - # 358

Ted Turner, billionaire media mogul and CNN founder, dies at 87

He conquered the broadcasting industry and reshaped the television landscape with CNN, the first 24-hour cable news network in the U.S. 

He was number 358 on the list.

Ted Turner, the high-flying media tycoon, entrepreneur and philanthropist who founded CNN and revolutionized American cable television, died on Wednesday.

He was 87.

Turner’s death was first reported by CNN, citing a Turner Enterprises news release.

"Ted was an intensely involved and committed leader, intrepid, fearless and always willing to back a hunch and trust his own judgment," CNN chairman and CEO Mark Thompson said in a statement. "He was and always will be the presiding spirit of CNN."

In his prime, Turner was one of the kings of broadcasting, a brash but savvy visionary. He turned the Turner Broadcasting System into a behemoth, establishing the “superstation” concept and launching channels such as TBS, TNT, Cartoon Network and Turner Classic Movies.

He transformed culture and politics with Cable News Network, the first 24-hour news channel in the country. CNN helped to fundamentally change the format and speed of TV news, laying the path for competitors such as Fox News and MSNBC, now known as MS Now.

Turner, with his wily grin and thin mustache, jumped into other ventures with the zeal of an Old West prospector. He once owned the Atlanta Braves, marketing the baseball franchise as “America’s Team.” He created Ted’s Montana Grill, a restaurant chain that serves bison meat.

He was a staple of magazine covers and newspaper business sections, cultivating a reputation for keen instincts and a no-filter style. He sometimes ran into trouble for injudicious comments about world affairs or religion, earning the nickname “Captain Outrageous.”

“I don’t have any idea what I’m going to say. I say what comes to my mind,” he told The New Yorker for a profile published in 2001.

He was also a prolific philanthropist, environmentalist and self-described “do-gooder.” He famously gave $1 billion to the United Nations and co-founded the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a nonprofit advocacy organization.

Robert Edward Turner III was born Nov. 19, 1938, in Cincinnati to Robert Edward Turner Jr. and Florence Turner. Turner’s father was a wealthy billboard advertising magnate who owned his own firm, Turner Advertising.

The young Turner enrolled at Brown University in 1956, but he was kicked out three years later, reportedly for having a woman in his dorm room. Turner then joined his father at the family business, headquartered in Atlanta, becoming general manager of a branch office in 1960.

The elder Turner, struggling with financial hardships and mental health issues, died by suicide in 1963; his son took over the advertising company, taking on the roles of president and CEO.

Turner Advertising was renamed Turner Communications with the acquisition of several radio stations. Turner branched out into other media, purchasing a beleaguered UHF television station in Atlanta, as well as the rights to old movies and sitcom reruns.

In the mid-1970s, Turner made one of the most consequential decisions of his career. He was one of the first media company owners to use satellite technology to broadcast his station to a national cable television viewing audience, widening his reach and boosting revenues.

Turner filled the “Super Station” lineup with a combination of vintage Hollywood titles, throwback sitcoms and baseball games.

In 1979, the company rebranded once again, becoming Turner Broadcasting System Inc. and establishing itself as one of the key enterprises of the cable television revolution.

Turner leveraged his media success in sports, buying the Atlanta Braves in 1976 and the Atlanta Hawks in 1977. The Braves won the World Series in 1995 under his ownership.

In the late 1970s, Turner came up with the idea for a 24-hour cable news channel — a significant shift in an era when the “Big Three” network news programs still reigned supreme and many viewers did not conceive of news consumption as a minute-to-minute activity.

CNN aired its first broadcast on June 1, 1980, anchored by the husband-and-wife duo of David Walker and Lois Hart.

In the mid-1980s, as CNN emerged as a cornerstone of the cable lineup and a household name, Turner bought MGM/UA Entertainment Co., which included Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s sprawling library of more than 4,000 movies.

He offended cinephiles and much of the Hollywood establishment with his plans to “colorize” black-and-white films from the MGM library. In a 1989 article, the Los Angeles Times called him “The Man Hollywood Loves to Hate.”

The critic Roger Ebert wrote that Turner’s airing of a colorized version of “Casablanca” was “one of the saddest days in the history of the movies.”

“It is sad because it demonstrates that there is no movie that Turner will spare, no classic however great that is safe from the vulgarity of his computerized graffiti gangs,” Ebert wrote.

Turner eventually backed down, deciding the colorization process was not cost-efficient. He soon sold off MGM/UA, but he retained ownership of the MGM movie library, which later formed the backbone of programming on Turner Classic Movies, or TCM, launched in 1994.

Turner married for a third and final time in 1991, partnering with the Oscar-winning actor and activist Jane Fonda.

The union between an avatar of American capitalism and an outspoken progressive who railed against the status quo raised eyebrows, but the two were smitten from the start and bonded over their shared curiosity about the world.

“In his heart, Ted is not a wealthy, powerful, privileged person,” Fonda told interviewers for “Jane Fonda in Five Acts,” an HBO documentary released in 2018. “He’s a little boy who likes to play, and who has wild brilliance, and that’s what I was attracted to.”

“We were both children of suicide, so we understood each other,” Fonda added.

The couple, by all accounts, savored their years together, spending countless hours in nature — hiking, fly-fishing, horse riding and other “adventures,” Fonda said. But the marriage ultimately ran aground, and they divorced in 2001.

“It was very difficult,” Turner told the HBO documentarians. “I’ve survived, and so has she, but I feel like I was happier when I was with her than subsequently.”

In 1996, Time Warner Inc. acquired Turner Broadcasting System for $7.5 billion. Turner was named vice chairman of Time Warner and presided over the new company’s cable TV brands.

Time Warner then merged with the former Internet giant AOL in 2001, with Turner becoming vice chairman and senior adviser of the newly formed AOL Time Warner Inc. Two years later, he resigned as vice chairman.

It was widely reported that Turner was forced out, and his departure effectively marked the end of his reign as a media industry chief. But in recent decades, he remained productive as a philanthropist and environmentalist.

He donated a staggering $1 billion to the United Nations in 1998; the funds were used to create the United Nations Foundation, a charitable group that supports the goals of the U.N.

He co-founded, with former Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a nonprofit organization that seeks to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction and advocates for global nonproliferation.

He supported various conservation projects and environmental causes. He was also one of the top landowners in the U.S., and he used the extensive acreage under his care to promote sustainability and ecotourism.

He was particularly invested in growing the country’s bison herd, and in 2002 he co-founded Ted’s Montana Grill, a restaurant chain that purportedly offered the “largest bison menu” on the planet.

In his later years, Turner made comments suggesting he was uncomfortable with the wave of corporate media consolidation he once symbolized.

“In the media, as in any industry, big corporations play a vital role, but so do small, emerging ones. When you lose small businesses, you lose big ideas,” he wrote in a 2004 essay for Washington Monthly.

Turner published an autobiography, “Call Me Ted,” in 2008. Ten years later, he announced that he had been diagnosed with Lewy body dementia.

“It’s a mild case of what people have as Alzheimer’s. It’s similar to that. But not nearly as bad. Alzheimer’s is fatal,” Turner told journalist Ted Koppel in the fall of 2018 from his Montana ranch.

Turner was married and divorced three times. He had five children — two from his first marriage, to Judy Gale Nye, and three from his second marriage, to Jane Shirley Smith.

Turner has been regarded as one of the entrepreneurs who transformed the cable industry and has been referred to as "the Alexander the Great of broadcasting" by Slate magazine:

While Turner has been described as a "valiant liberator" and cast the networks as oppressive scoundrels, in content his programming fell short of inspiring. His network was built on sitcom reruns, old movies, cartoons, and Atlanta Braves games. He found an audience for classics of a bygone time, along with slightly down-market content like professional wrestling. Nonetheless, he would find glorious terms even for retreads and junk, claiming to be pulling America back to television's golden age: "I want to get it back to the principles" he once said, "that made us good." Nostalgic, Manichean, and boot-strappy: like programmer, like programming

The cable industry boomed in the late 1970s and early 1980s, as nearly a dozen cable networks launched based on the Turner model. They include much of what we now consider the staples of cable TV, including ESPN, MTV, Bravo, Showtime, BET, the Discovery Channel, and the Weather Channel. Those are the better-known channels only by virtue of having survived; others, such as ARTS, CBS Cable, and the Satellite News Channel, folded or were acquired by other companies.

Professional wrestling promoter and former Senior Vice President of WCW second in charge after Turner, Eric Bischoff praised Turner claiming "He was an inspirational leader, he was a risk taker, he appreciated people who took risks, he was not afraid of failure while most people are. Ted was not afraid to fail, he was more afraid of not trying and not conquering that next horizon."

On June 24, 1999, Vince McMahon stated on Late Night with Conan O'Brien: "All I'll say about Ted is he's a son-of-a-bitch, other than that, he's probably not a bad guy, but I don't like him at all". Later in 2021, when asked about the upstart AEW in comparison to Turner's WCW, McMahon dismissed AEW, stating that "it certainly is not a situation where 'rising tides' because that was when Ted Turner was coming after us with all of Time Warner's assets as well"

When Turner was 26, he entered sailing competitions at the Savannah Yacht Club and competed in Olympic trials in 1964. He first attempted to win the America's Cup in 1974, losing in the defender's trials, aboard 12 Metre class yacht US–25 Mariner. Turner was defeated by Ted Hood aboard US–26 Courageous.

Turner was asked to join the 1977 America's Cup defense syndicate formed by Hood and Lee Loomis for the New York Yacht Club. That group still owned the Courageous but decided to design and construct a new 12 Metre – US–28 Independence – to defend the 1974 America's Cup victory. However, in the trials, with Turner as skipper aboard the 3-year-old Courageous proved to be the faster than Hood and Independence  and was selected to race in the 1977 races.

From 13 to 18 September 1977 Courageous, with Turner in command, defeated the challenger Australia, skippered by Noel Robins, in a four-race sweep. Courageous' greatest winning margin out of all four races was 2 minutes and 23 seconds.

Awards and honors

Emmy Awards

 

Lifetime Achievement – Sports (2014)

Lifetime Achievement – News & Documentary (2015)

Sports

 

1995: World Series champion (as owner of the Atlanta Braves)

1996: Atlanta Braves home ballpark (1996–2016) named Turner Field

2004: Commemorative banner at State Farm Arena honoring his tenure as owner of the Atlanta Hawks

Media

 

1984: Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement

1989: Paul White Award, Radio Television Digital News Association

1990: Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism.

1991: Time magazine's Man of the Year.

1997: Peabody Award winner

1999: Edison Achievement Award for his commitment to innovation throughout his career

2000: Edward R. Murrow Award for Lifetime Achievement in Communication

Halls of Fame

 

1991: Television Hall of Fame inductee

2004: Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame

Organizational

 

1991: Audubon medal from the National Audubon Society

2001: Albert Schweitzer Gold Medal for Humanitarianism

2010: Georgia Trustee, an honor given by the Georgia Historical Society, in conjunction with the Governor of Georgia[78]

2013: Lone Sailor Award, which recognizes Navy, Marine and Coast Guard veterans who have distinguished themselves in their civilian careers (Turner is a Coast Guard veteran)

Ann Godoff obit

Ann Godoff Dies: Legendary Book Editor & Publisher Was 76

 

She was not on the list.

Ann Godoff, the founder, president and Editor-in-Chief of Penguin Press, whose stable of authors included E.L. Doctorow, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Michael Pollan, Tom Brokaw, Salman Rushdie, Zadie Smith, William Styron and Alice Waters, died Tuesday in Albany, NY, Deadline has confirmed. She was 76.

Born on July 22, 1949, in Manhattan, Godoff founded The Penguin Press in 2003 with a mission “dedicated to publishing quality nonfiction and literary fiction … to publish ideas that matter, storytelling that lasts, and books that don’t just start conversations, but detonate them.”

It’s hard to deny Penguin Press’s impact on literature and even the broader culture. It has published five Pulitzer Prize winners (Ghost Wars, by Steve Coll, 2005; Lords of Finance, by Liaquat Ahamed, 2010; Washington, by Ron Chernow, 2011; George F. Kennan, by John Lewis Gaddis, 2012, and Barbarian Days by William Finnegan, 2016).

It is the current literary home of Thomas Pynchon, whose next novel, Shadow Ticket, it will publish in October. Pynchon’s Vineland was the inspiration for Oscar favorite One Battle After Another.

Mary Oliver, Werner Herzog, Gavin Newsom, Aziz Ansari, David Axelrod, Chuck Klosterman, Phil Jackson, Karl Ove Knausgaard, Al Gore, Carolyn Forche and Errol Morris.

Godoff wore many hats throughout her career and had responsibilities on both the business and creative sides of publishing — often simultaneously. She told C-SPAN2 in 2002 that, “The Editor-in-Chief role is the one I’m most comfortable with because it also involves the fostering of editorial talent. Being an editor is a job I love.”

Her talent was recognized by her peers.

“Ann influenced generations of editors and publishers by showing us, through her example, that you can champion works of cultural significance while still being commercially successful,” Jonathan Karp, a former Random House editor in chief and a former publisher, president and chief executive of Simon & Schuster is quoted as saying in the New York Times. “If there were a Hall of Fame for book publishing, Ann would be voted in on the first ballot.”

Ann Godoff first joined the editorial department of Simon & Schuster in 1980, and in 1987 became  Senior Editor at Atlantic Monthly Press; in two years she became Editor-in-Chief. In 1991, Ms. Godoff was appointed Executive Editor at Random House, where she would eventually be named Vice President and Editorial Director. In 1997 she became President, Publisher, and Editor-in-Chief of the Random House Trade Publishing Group and Executive Vice President of Random House, Inc.

Among the many bestsellers she helped find their way into print are John Berendt’s Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and Caleb Carr’s The Alienist.

Robert Wolgemuth obit

Robert Wolgemuth, Best-Selling Christian Author and Husband of Nancy DeMoss, Dies at 77

 

He was not on the list.

On Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026 the Revive Our Hearts community announced the passing of Robert Wolgemuth, who “departed from his earthly body and this broken world and entered into the glory of eternity with Christ.”

At seventy-seven years old, Robert’s home-going concluded a life marked by deep faith, unwavering integrity and a passion to see others know and love the Savior. Known affectionately by many simply as Bob, Robert’s final days were spent surrounded by prayer, love, and the companionship of his wife, Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, founder and lead Bible teacher of Revive Our Hearts. After a brief battle dealing with complications from pneumonia, he was peacefully ushered into eternity, confident in the promise that “those who die in the Lord will live again.”

On Facebook, Revive Our Hearts ministry wrote:

Over the last few days, several close friends and family members have kept vigil with me around Robert’s bed, singing hymns, praying, waiting, weeping . . . and worshiping. His children and grandchildren (who we were able to spend time with less than a month ago) said good-bye through FaceTime.

Last night, one of Robert’s brothers and his wife spent the night with me in the hospital room. Robert’s breathing had been slowing down, with longer pauses between each one.

Just before 5:00 this morning, I was prompted to play a beautiful song called “Come to Jesus.” The last stanza says:

And with your final heartbeat, kiss the world goodbye

Then go in peace, and laugh on Glory’s side.

And fly to Jesus, fly to Jesus

Fly to Jesus and live.

On the phrase, “with your final heartbeat,” Robert took a gasping breath. We watched intently, waiting to see if he would take another one. It was to be his last.

At the end of the chorus, Robert’s brother said softly, with wonder and awe: “He just flew to Jesus!”

It was a sacred, glorious moment. An incredible gift from the Lord.

A Life Devoted to the Word and to People

Robert’s influence in Christian publishing and ministry stretched across more than four decades. As the founder of the literary agency Wolgemuth & Associates (now Wolgemuth & Wilson), he invested in authors, shepherded stories and shaped generations of Christian voices. A gifted communicator, he authored more than twenty books that have sold over two million copies, with five receiving Silver Medallion Awards from the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association. His work included beloved titles such as Lies Men Believe, Gun Lap, Finish Line, and the devotional notes to the Men’s Daily Bible. Together with Nancy, he co-authored You Can Trust God to Write Your Story, a testament to his own unwavering trust in God’s providence. Beyond publishing, Robert’s heart was for people. After retirement, he poured that same zeal into Revive Our Hearts, caring for donors, staff and strengthening those around him with the same grace and wisdom he shared in his writings. His “love for Jesus and for Nancy was contagious,” and his absence is felt keenly among colleagues, friends and the global community he served.

Husband, Father, Grandfather, and Friend

Robert was first and foremost a devoted husband and family man. He is survived by Nancy, his dearest friend and prayer partner of ten years, and was the beloved father of two daughters from his first marriage to Bobbie Wolgemuth (d. 2014). He also leaves behind five grandchildren and three great-grandchildren who will carry on his legacy of faith.

Written works (partial list)

She Calls Me Daddy: Seven Things Every Man Needs to Know About Building a Complete Daughter (1996)

The Devotional Bible for Dads (1999)

Pray with Me Daddy: Conversations with God for Dads and Daughters (1999)

Daddy@Work: Loving Your Family, Loving Your Job...Being Your Best in Both Worlds (2002)

O Worship the King: Hymns of Praise and Assurance to Encourage Your Heart, co-authored with John F. MacArthur, Joni Eareckson Tada, and Bobbie Wolgemuth (2000)

What's in the Bible: A One-Volume Guidebook to God's Word, co-authored with R.C. Sproul (2001)

What Wondrous Love Is This: Hymns of Wonder and Worship to Remember His Love, co-authored with John F. MacArthur, Joni Eareckson Tada, and Bobbie Wolgemuth (2002)

When Morning Gilds the Skies: Hymns of Heaven and Our Eternal Hope, co-authored with John F. MacArthur, Joni Eareckson Tada, and Bobbie Wolgemuth (2002)

Prayers from a Dad's Heart (2003)

Dad's Prayer Journal: A Guided Journal (2004)

How to Lead Your Child to Christ, co-authored with Bobbie Wolgemuth (2005)

7 Things You Better Have Nailed Down Before All Hell Breaks Loose (2007)

Dad's Bible: The Father's Plan (2007)

Fathers of the Bible: A Devotional (2008)

She Still Calls Me Daddy: Building a New Relationship with Your Daughter After You Walk Her Down the Aisle (2009)

The Father's Plan: A Bible Study for Dads (2010)

Letters to God Bible (2010)

Couples of the Bible: A One-Year Devotional Study to Draw You Closer to God and Each Other, co-authored with Bobbie Wolgemuth (2013)

Dad's Devotional Bible (2015)

Like the Shepherd: Leading Your Marriage with Love and Grace (Hardcover) (2017)

Tim Kask obit

Tim Kask (1949 - 2025)

 

He was not on the list.

Today, we lost Tim Kask, and it feels like one of the load-bearing pillars of this hobby has been removed. He was 76, just two weeks shy of 77.

Before he was TSR’s first full-time employee, before he edited The Dragon and helped turn a homebrew wargame into a living culture, Tim Kask was a married student at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale (SIUC). A Saluki. That detail matters more than it might seem. Well. At least to me.

From SIUC, Kask did something that sounds almost mythic now. He found an address for Gary Gygax in the back of Chainmail, picked up the phone, and cold-called Lake Geneva. Late '73 or early '74, depending on whose memory you trust. He got invited up, and the rest is history. Not destiny. Not inevitability. Just a guy deciding to make the call.

Tim and I talked a lot about SIUC. Salukis never really ever forget Carbondale, becomes part of our DNA. He told me about visiting his brother in the Triads, playing D&D there, making space for imagination in cinderblock dorm rooms. He lived in Boomer Hall, I lived in Wright Hall two of the three Triads. About thirteen or fourteen years apart, but close enough that the echoes line up. Same bricks. Same paths. Same sense that something strange and creative could happen there.

I'd love to know how many games were played in those ugly damn dorms. And we all have Tim Kask to thank for this.

Kask refereed what local coverage described as the first Dungeons & Dragons campaign played at SIU, and likely one of the first outside Lake Geneva. The Qualishar campaign, or Kwalishar, depending on which source you read. The spelling drift alone tells you how early this was. This was before canon. Before anyone knew they were making history.

That Carbondale period mattered. It shaped how D&D escaped the gravitational pull of those three little brown books and became something people shared, argued about, wrote letters about, and eventually built communities around. Tim was there when the game stopped being just rules and became culture.

There is also that wonderful bit of apocrypha Tim himself shared over the years. His first player character was named Kwalish. Fans have long connected that, informally, to the Apparatus of Kwalish. Is it provable? No. Is it plausible? Absolutely. And that feels right for Tim. Part fact, part legend, part inside joke, all wrapped up in the living memory of the game.

Tim Kask was never just an editor. He was a bridge. Between Lake Geneva and the rest of the world. Between amateurs and professionals. Between "this is a fun idea" and "this is something worth taking seriously."

Rest well, Tim. The dice are still rolling because you helped get them out of the box. I'll roll some dice in your honor or use a Quatro's cup with some chits, or my SIU cup.

Kask became interested in board games in his childhood, and later turned to miniatures wargames. While attending university after a stint in the US Navy, he was part of a group that playtested an early version of the new role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) for game co-designer Gary Gygax. Gygax hired him as the first employee of TSR, Inc. in 1975. After editing some of TSR's early D&D publications, Kask became editor of The Strategic Review, which later became The Dragon, and then Dragon Magazine.

Kask left TSR in 1980 to publish a new magazine, Adventure Gaming, but when that failed, he left the games industry in 1983 and spent some time as a freelance editor and speechwriter before becoming a teacher. In 2010 he returned to the games industry as one of the co-founders of Eldritch Enterprises.

Tim Kask was born and raised in Moline, Illinois. At age 11, he became interested in Avalon Hill's board wargame D-Day, and played it frequently for three years. During a four-year stint with the US Navy (1967–1971) during the Vietnam War, he often played 1914, another Avalon Hill game. He married his wife Cheryl in 1970, and they have a daughter, and a son.

After leaving the navy, Kask attended Southern Illinois University’s campus in Carbondale, Illinois. While there, he was introduced to miniature wargaming, including Chainmail. Kask phoned Chainmail author Gary Gygax with some questions about the game. This developed into a series of long late-night phone conversations about miniatures rules that eventually resulted in Gygax's invitation to Kask to come to the Gen Con gaming convention in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.  There Kask finally met Gygax in person for the first time. At the time, Gygax was co-developing the rules for a new type of game that he called "The Fantasy Game". Kask sat in on the two sample sessions that Gygax offered, thereby becoming one of the first people outside of Gygax's family and friends to play what would become Dungeons & Dragons.

In 1975, a year after the original rules to Dungeons & Dragons were published by Tactical Studies Rules (soon to become TSR, Inc.), Gygax hired Kask as an editor, the first full-time employee of the new company. Kask's first assignment was editing, developing, and contributing to the Blackmoor rules supplement.[4] Kask became editor of The Strategic Review, starting with Issue #5. Kask authorized Jennell Jaquays through a casual license to publish The Dungeoneer as a fanzine to publish adventures for gamemasters to use.[6] In 1976 Kask edited the final three supplementary rules booklets for the original D&D rules: Eldritch Wizardry, Gods, Demi-gods & Heroes, and Swords & Spells. Kask's focus within TSR then changed, as he oversaw the formation of TSR Periodicals. He split The Strategic Review into two new periodicals: The Dragon, devoted to D&D; and Little Wars, devoted to historical board gaming and miniatures play. Kask was the editor of the first 33 issues of The Dragon (soon renamed Dragon Magazine). Kask developed and edited TSR's historical board game, William the Conqueror, 1066, and was responsible for starting the Days of the Dragon line of calendars. During the development of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and Basic Dungeons & Dragons in the late 1970s, Kask helped Gygax delineate the differences between the two game systems.

Kask was responsible for hiring a number of people at TSR who subsequently went on to become influential creators in the role-playing game industry, including Kim Mohan.

Andreas Whittam Smith obit

Andreas Whittam Smith, co-founder and first editor of The Independent, dies aged 88

The editor and media entrepreneur changed the landscape of British journalism over his decades-long career 

He was not on the list.

Andreas Whittam Smith, the former editor who co-founded The Independent and changed the landscape of British journalism over his decades-long career, has died aged 88.

The pioneering editor and media entrepreneur died on Saturday, his family said in a statement.

Whittam Smith was the early driving force behind The Independent, the broadsheet he launched in 1986 as an antidote to the entrenched partisanship of Fleet Street. Under his stewardship, the newspaper won a devoted readership with its commitment to neutrality, intellectual rigour, and clean, modern design, with clarity and depth chosen over sensationalism.

He had worked in finance and public service, but it was in the media industry in particular where his influence will be keenly felt long after his death.

He was knighted in 2015 for his services to the media and public life in recognition of his remarkable contributions and his legacy of courage, independence and championing of the truth.

The Independent’s editor-in-chief, Geordie Greig, said: “All of the staff of The Independent, past and present, are deeply saddened to hear of the death of our founder Andreas Whittam Smith.

“By co-founding The Independent as an antidote to corporate conformity and lack of free expression and individuality in British newspapers, Andreas Whittam Smith not only broke the mould, he was a heroic crusader for a global freedom for all press.

“His zeal for journalism caught the imagination of the whole nation and established a global brand which has never stopped fighting for journalism that wasn’t beholden to entrenched political or economic interests.

“He did so with a dapper charm, steely persuasion and unconquerable desire to be on the side of truth. When I once asked him if he had any advice as I became editor of The Independent, he extolled the importance of imagination as much as endeavour. He brought both in spades to The Independent, which is about to celebrate the 40th anniversary of his creation.”

Born in Altrincham, Cheshire, in June 1937, Whittam Smith attended Birkenhead School before studying at Oxford University, where he read politics, philosophy and economics.

After carrying out his national service as an infantryman where he guarded Spandau Prison in Berlin, Whittam Smith began in finance, working at the stockbroking firm Laurence Prust before making the move into journalism.

He began in financial journalism at The Investors Chronicle, before later holding senior editorial roles at The Daily Telegraph and The Financial Times, where he gained a reputation as a sharp and analytical business editor.

At the time, the British press was increasingly polarised and partisan – an environment out of which the bold idea to launch a national newspaper independent of any party or proprietorial influence was born.

Whittam Smith, along with colleagues Matthew Symonds and Stephen Glover, launched The Independent in 1986 with the memorable masthead: “It is. Are you?”, bursting onto the publishing scene to much acclaim.

Under Whittam Smith’s unassuming but determined leadership, bold editorial decisions were made, major stories were broken, and talented journalists were nurtured, including foreign correspondents Robert Fisk and Patrick Cockburn, bringing a global reputation to the newspaper that has only grown over the years.

After stepping down as editor of The Independent in 1993, Whittam Smith was appointed president of the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) in 1998 and became the first Church Estates Commissioner four years later.

Meanwhile, he continued to write and comment on political and economic affairs, contributing to The Independent right up until the years just before his death.

Among those to pay tribute to Whittam Smith was BBC broadcaster and former editor of The Independent Amol Rajan.

Writing on social media, he said: “A radical and a pioneer, Andreas profoundly transformed British journalism for the better, and forever.

“With his passing, a titan - and the golden era he personified - has ventured to the great newsroom in the sky.

Robert B. Barnett obit

Robert B. Barnett, Powerhouse Attorney Known for Representing the Obamas and Clintons, Dies at 79

Barnett was called upon so often by politicians leaving office that he became known as “the doorman to Washington’s revolving door" 

He was not on the list.

Robert B. Barnett, a powerhouse Washington attorney who became a fixture in the political and publishing worlds as the literary representative for Barack and Michelle Obama, Bill and Hillary Clinton and dozens of other leaders, has died at age 79.

Barnett’s executive assistant, Ashley Duffy, told The Associated Press that he died Thursday night. Additional details were not immediately available.

A stocky, raspy-voiced man with tortoise shell glasses, antique cuff links and a knack for being both forthright and discrete, Bob Barnett embodied an era when it was possible to work freely with both Democrats and Republicans and politics could stop at the edge of a good book deal. He was a longtime Democrat, working on Jimmy Carter’s 1976 campaign and helping Bill Clinton and other candidates in debate preparation. But he would broker contracts for such a wide range of political figures that he liked to joke that should his clients all gather in one room the result would be “World War III.”

He was a partner at the high-end law firm Williams & Connolly, and for more than 20 years no one approached his stature as an intermediary between the Washington elite and New York publishers. From the early 1990s through the end of the Obama administration, in 2017, Barnett represented three consecutive presidents and first ladies — the Clintons, George W. and Laura Bush and the Obamas — and much of the remaining A-list political players, from Ted Kennedy and Mitch McConnell to Dick Cheney and Alan Greenspan, from Paul Ryan and Donald Rumsfeld to Al Franken and Elizabeth Warren.

Barnett was called upon so often by politicians leaving office that he became known as “the doorman to Washington’s revolving door.”

He was not an agent, he liked to point out, but an attorney who billed clients by the hour instead of receiving a percentage of royalties. It was a unique business arrangement that priced out the average writer, but well rewarded Obama, the Clintons and others who landed multi-million dollar deals.

The general public could have made good money betting on Barnett’s authors to prevail in elections. In six consecutive presidential races, from 1992-2012, a current or future Barnett client was elected, often defeating a non-Barnett client.

“He’s one of the sagest advisers I’ve ever been able to call upon,” Republican strategist Karl Rove, a Barnett client and top aide to George W. Bush, told Politico in 2017. “He has counseled me on every professional decision I’ve made.”

A client list beyond DC

Barnett also handled negotiations for media executives and reporters (Roger Ailes, Bob Woodward, Chris Wallace), musical superstars (Elton John, Barbra Streisand), business leaders (Jack Welch, Phil Knight), international leaders (former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Queen Noor of Jordan) and one of the world’s best-selling novelists, James Patterson. For years, he was not only representing presidents, but Jake Tapper, Brit Hume and other White House reporters who covered them. One of the best-selling political novels in recent years, “The President Is Missing,” was a collaboration conceived by Barnett for Patterson and Bill Clinton.

His political winning streak ended after 2016 when non-client Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton. He was disdainful of Trump and eventually overtaken by the Creative Artists Agency and such younger Washington players as the Javelin literary agency.

Asked in 2012 by the British law firm Chamber Associates how he wanted to be remembered, Barnett responded. “‘He was loyal, kept confidences, and tried his best. He was a good husband, father, grandfather, counselor, and friend.” Around the same time, Obama offered a wryer take, as recorded in Mark Leibovich’s bestselling political chronicle “This Town.”

Barnett was part of the team helping Obama prepare for his 2012 debates with Republican challenger Mitt Romney, and was known among the president’s advisers for his quintessentially insider observations. When Barnett prefaced one of his comments with “the conventional wisdom is,” Obama responded, “Bob, you ARE the conventional wisdom.”

In 1972, Barnett married Rita Braver, a fellow graduate of the University of Wisconsin and a future CBS television correspondent. They had a daughter, Meredith.

An unexpected path to publishing

A native of Waukegan, Illinois, Robert Bruce Barnett graduated as senior class president from Waukegan High School, majored in political science at the University of Wisconsin and received a law degree from the University of Chicago. He moved to Washington in the early 1970s, clerking for Supreme Court Justice Byron White and working as aide to then-Sen. Walter Mondale of Minnesota. In 1975, he joined Williams & Connolly, and was made a partner three years later. Beyond his political clients, he also represented numerous corporations and businesses, including Deutsche Bank, McDonald’s and JM Family Enterprises.

Barnett did not plan his rise in book publishing. He had helped Vice Presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro prepare for her 1984 debate against George H.W. Bush, Ronald Reagan’s vice president, and consulted with her when reports came out about her husband’s alleged ties to organized crime. After the election, Ferraro asked him to help find a publisher for her memoir. Barnett, as inexperienced about publishing a book as Ferraro was about writing one, worked with New York agent Esther Newberg on a 7-figure deal with Bantam Books. Soon after, he arranged a lucrative deal for David Stockman, the first budget director in the Reagan administration.

Among political leaders, he was especially close to the Clintons. They turned to him when White House aide and family friend Vince Foster killed himself in 1993 and when news broke that Bill Clinton had an affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. His influence was never greater than in 2008, during the Democratic presidential primary. The main contenders were his longtime client, Hillary Clinton, and a new client, Obama, who had dropped his previous agent and turned to Barnett to make a deal for “The Audacity of Hope,” one of history’s bestselling political books and a key factor in his stunning rise.

After a long and emotional primary campaign, Clinton, who had been heavily favored, conceded in June 2008 and began negotiating her role at the Democratic National Convention. The negotiations were handled by Barnett. By the end of the year, Obama had been elected (defeating the non-Barnett client Sen. John McCain) and Barnett was arranging a multi-million dollar deal for another client, the outgoing president, George W. Bush.

Patrick Hemingway obit

Patrick Hemingway, last surviving child of literary giant Ernest Hemingway, dies at 97

 

He was not on the list.

Patrick Hemingway, the last surviving child of literary giant Ernest Hemingway, has died at 97.

Inspired by his Nobel laureate father, he spent years in Africa and oversaw numerous posthumous works.

The second of the author’s three sons, he passed away on Tuesday at his home in Bozeman, Montana, his grandson, Patrick Hemingway Adams, confirmed.

“My grandfather was the real thing: a larger than life paradox from the old world; a consummate dreamer saddled with a scientific brain. He spoke half a dozen languages and solved complicated mathematical problems for fun, but his heart truly belonged to the written and visual arts,” Adams said.

While brother Gregory Hemingway had a deeply troubled relationship with his famous parent, Patrick Hemingway spoke proudly of his background and welcomed the chance to bring up the family name or get behind a project he thought could sell or attract critical attention. In the 2022 book “Dear Papa: The Letters of Patrick and Ernest Hemingway,” father and son share stories of hunting and fishing and express mutual affection, with the author telling Patrick that “I would rather fish with you and shoot with you than anybody that I have ever known since I was a boy and this is not because we are related.”

As an executor of his father's estate, Patrick Hemingway approved reissues of such classics as "A Farewell to Arms" and "A Moveable Feast," featuring revised texts and additional commentary from the author’s son and others. The estate also unsettled Hemingway admirers by expanding beyond books and offering a line of products that included clothing, eyewear, rugs and "Papa's Pilar Rum."

Patrick's most ambitious undertaking was the editing of "True at First Light," a fictionalized account of Ernest Hemingway's time in Africa in the mid-1950s that the author left unfinished at the time of his death. Patrick assembled the 1999 release from some 800 pages of manuscripts, cutting the length by more than half. "True at First Light" was highly anticipated, but ended up disappointing readers and critics, some of whom faulted Patrick for exploiting the family name.

Asked by NPR if he read his father's work, Patrick replied: "Pretty often, because I have a commercial interest. ... I have to read it in order to be competent in the marketing of it and the management of it."

Hemingway managed a long life in a family haunted by suicide and mental illness: Ernest Hemingway's father, Clarence, killed himself in 1928, and the author did the same in 1961. Gregory Hemingway suffered from alcoholism and depression and died in a jail cell in 2001 after being arrested for indecent exposure. Patrick's half-niece, the actor and model Margaux Hemingway, died from an overdose of phenobarbital in 1996. (Jack Hemingway, the eldest son, died in 2000).

Inheriting his father’s round face and stocky build, Patrick Hemingway was born in Kansas City, Missouri, to Ernest Hemingway and the second of his four wives, Pauline Pfeiffer. Because the author rarely stayed in one place for an extended time, the Hemingways lived everywhere from Cuba and Spain to Wyoming and Key West, Florida during Patrick’s childhood (Ernest and Pauline divorced in 1940). Patrick Hemingway would recall his father’s various “trophy mounts” of animals hunted down on safari and how they were “tastefully distributed throughout every room” of their Key West house, including a wildebeest that hung in the bedroom of Patrick and Gregory.

The displays made East Africa a dream destination for Patrick, a “promised land.” After graduating from Harvard University, he used inheritance money to buy a farm in Tanganyika (now Tanzania), where he was a hunter, safari guide, educator and forestry officer in the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations.

Patrick Hemingway was married twice, to Henrietta Broyles and Carol Thompson, and had a daughter, Mina Hemingway, with his first wife. From the mid-1970s until his death, he was based in Bozeman. Ernest Hemingway spent his final years in the neighboring state of Idaho.

"Sometimes I think of him when I could just barely remember him, you know, when he was just someone who'd kissed you and you didn't really want to be kissed because the whiskers were a little bit rough on your face," Patrick told NPR in 2008. "And later on it was, you know, when he came to Africa ... and we'd be riding at night just having fun, you know.

“I remember him in every stage of his life.”

Mort Todd obit

Mort Todd, R.I.P.

 He was not on the list.

Sad to hear the news that Mort Todd (aka Michael Delle-Femine, aka Eel O'Brain) has passed away at the far too young age of 63.  Todd's career intersected with Ditko a number of times. In the 1980s he was the editor of CRACKED and commissioned a number of stories by Ditko (some of which Todd also wrote).  Later on Todd created the magazine MONSTERS ATTACK, each issue including a memorable story by Ditko (one of them inked by Todd). Also in that era, Todd wrote the story for RETURN OF THE SKYMAN #1 for A.C.E. Comics, which Ditko drew.

In the early 1990s, Todd worked with Ditko on some original Mr. A. material that only ended up being published years later by SD Publishing. He apparently did produce a Mr. A. t-shirt and some other stuff.

In the 1990s Todd was an editor at Marvel, where he worked on a number of reprints that included vintage Ditko work. He also got Ditko to contribute some new covers and pin-ups for those books, including the amusing little bit on the side here.

Later on Todd worked on some publications reprinting some of the 1980s stuff, and was recently announced as editing some material for the Ditko Estate's Ditkoverse initiative.

He was best known as an editor-in-chief of Cracked magazine, and later, Marvel Music. He was owner of Comicfix, a media company that has developed licensed properties.

As a writer, artist or editor, Todd worked at several comic book companies, contributing to characters including Superman and Spider-Man, and to licensed properties such as Barbie and Looney Tunes. His illustrations appear on CD covers, magazines, newspapers, and print advertisements.

Todd was born on November 9, 1961, and raised in the state of Maine, where he cultivated a keen interest in all media. As a youth, he started drawing and writing comics, and was editor of his camp newspaper. In high school he drew advertisements and record covers for local clubs and bands and created the Stiv Bators logo still being used for the late Dead Boys' solo career. As a teen, he moved to New York City and began creating Back from the Grave garage punk album covers for Crypt Records. He re-created the first cover for a new album from the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion.

With Daniel Clowes, Pete Friedrich and Rick Altergott, Mort Todd contributed stories and art to Psycho Comics. He sold his first screenplay for a TV pilot called The Ultimates to a German production company while still a teenager. The pilot was produced, but never distributed, and stars a young Clowes as a teen rock 'n' roll superhero.[citation needed] Mort also wrote and penciled some stories for Clowes' Lloyd Llewellyn series from Fantagraphics. Around then he started freelancing for DC Comics, Marvel Comics, Kitchen Sink, Myron Fass, and many other smaller publishers.

From 1983 to 1996, he illustrated all nine original volumes of Back from the Grave (Crypt Records), a compilation series of obscure proto-punk rock from the 1960s. The original art to the cover of Volume One is on permanent display at the Cornell University Punk Archive Collection.

In 1985, Todd became editor-in-chief of Cracked magazine. There he signed artist Don Martin after a 32-year career at Mad Magazine. Todd also published some of the earliest mainstream work of Altergott, Clowes, and Peter Bagge.

For Globe Communications, Todd created the comics magazine Monsters Attack!, which featured horror comics and articles about movies. It ran five issues (Sept. 1989 - Dec. 1990), with Todd involved with the first four.

Todd launched the imprint AAA, which published the first authorized collection of Bill Ward's pin-ups in W.O.W. (World of Ward). AAA also published a bilingual humor comic called Pepito with stories by writer George Gladir.

In 1994, Todd launched a line of music comics called Marvel Music at Marvel Comics, working with such artists as Kiss, Rob Zombie, The Rolling Stones, KRS-One, and the estates of Elvis Presley and Bob Marley. Some of the talent working on these books included Neil Gaiman, Kyle Baker, Dan Barry, Severin, Colan, and Morrow.

While at Marvel, Todd also edited a series of pre-Comics Code horror and giant monster reprints (Curse of the Weird and Monster Menace), and developed the oversized Comic Book by Ren & Stimpy-creator John Kricfalusi.

In 2005, Todd rejoined Cracked magazine, this time as a contributing editor, but left after several months.

Todd wrote and illustrated for the new Tales from the Crypt comic series, and completed new comic books featuring "Lucy Hell, Devilgirl", "The Secret Society", and the French/English language "Mr. Krime", the last written by Martyrs of Pop's Jean-Emmanuel Dubois. With his longtime collaborator Cliff Mott, Todd created and directed three animated cartoons for Playboy.

Todd has storyboarded commercials and produced animation for Walt Disney, Sesame Street, CBS, MTV, and Comcast, including an animated television pilot featuring Christopher Walken.

Todd was assistant director on the live-action film Distraction, and directed his first live-action short, a gangster comedy called A Change of Heart. He was producer of The Diabolikal Super-Kriminal documentary, which had its world premiere in Italy at the Ravenna Nightmare Film Festival in November 2007, and its U.S. premiere at San Diego Comic-Con in July, 2009. The film was awarded a Special Mention at the convention and in November, 2011, won the "Golden Lobster" Director's Award at the Portland Maine Film Festival. He has directed music videos for cartoonist Peter Bagge's Seattle band Can You Imagine?, the psychobilly band Psycho Charger, the Spanish Help Me Devil as well as an animated tease for his animated Sadistik: Strip & Kill web series. He also provided some animation for the documentary Arias with a Twist, directed by Bobby Sheehan.

Malcolm Margolin obit

‘A mighty redwood of a man has fallen.’ Remembering Malcolm Margolin, founder of Heyday books

The writer, editor and publisher, who exposed white audiences to Ohlone history and promoted Indigenous cultural renewal across the state, died Wednesday. He was 84. 

He was not on the list.

Malcolm Margolin, who founded the Berkeley-based Heyday books in 1974 and helped turn it into an outlet for Native Californian writing, died from complications from Parkinson’s disease on Wednesday. He was at Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in Berkeley, surrounded by his family. Margolin, who had been living in a skilled nursing wing at Piedmont Gardens in Oakland since the spring of 2023, was 84.

“The death of Malcolm Margolin leaves all of us at Heyday, the independent, nonprofit publishing company he founded more than fifty years ago, saddened beyond measure,” said Steve Wasserman, Heyday’s current publisher. “It is with surpassing grief that we mark the end of this extraordinary man, but we are summoned to continue the legacy he has left us — a profound commitment to celebrating the beauty and joy to be found in this broken world, a deep and abiding respect for California’s indigenous traditions that he did so much to learn from and explore, a passionate engagement with the issues of social justice he sought to bring to light and, where possible, to heal and repair. Above all, we will miss his unrivaled talent as a storyteller and a dreamweaver. I shall personally miss his constant encouragement and his exemplary curiosity about the world. A mighty redwood of a man has fallen.”

“He was a collaborator and a muse,” said Berkeley-based photographer Richard Nagler, whose two photography books were published by Margolin. “We will never be able to replace a man of such dimensions. He represented and nurtured the best in all of us. His death is a terrible loss for Berkeley, the Bay Area, and the world.”

With his John Lennon glasses and the rabbinic beard he’d sported since the 1970s, Margolin has stood out over the decades as one of Berkeley’s best-known and easily identifiable characters, a fixture at cultural events and an ex-hippie who never gave up the ethos of his generation. Margolin created Heyday during the height of Berkeley’s independent publishing scene in 1974, and he ran it in a loose and unconventional style — often at a deficit.

Over the course of his tenure at Heyday, Margolin served as its publisher, executive director and one of its authors. He retired from Heyday in 2015, at the age of 75.

A lover of other people’s stories, Margolin was described by the writer Rebecca Solnit as “the uncle you wish you had,” a people person known for his unconventional approach to the business of publishing. He saw his role as one of a bridge builder, “reaching out and taking risks to build connection across communities, to take risks with the books he brings to print,” oral historian Kim Bancroft wrote in The Heyday of Malcolm Margolin: The Damn Good Times of a Fiercely Independent Publisher, a collection published in 2014 to coincide with the imprint’s’s 40th anniversary.

He’s the uncle you wish you had.

Author Rebecca Solnit

“Malcolm’s most valuable support went to Indigenous California, through the magazine News from Native California, through the books by and about Indians in California, but also through his support — and that of Heyday’s — to many Native cultural organizations, such as the California Indian Basketweavers,” Bancroft wrote in a March 2024 email. “Malcolm would show up, with or without his Heyday books, at Powwows, Big Times, and friends’ salmon feasts in order to, as he said, ‘warm himself at the hearth of others’ stories.’”

A young traveller who embraced the Summer of Love

Margolin was born on Oct. 27, 1940, in a Jewish neighborhood in Dorchester, outside Boston, the son of Rose and Max Margolin, a freight broker.

He went to Harvard University in 1958, where he majored in English, but wouldn’t graduate until 1964, dropping out a couple of times, much to his father’s chagrin. During such hiatuses, he lived in New York and worked for his father’s employer in Puerto Rico. He described his college years, in which he slowly acquired social skills, as being in a “cocoon more than I was getting wings.”

At Harvard he met his future wife, Rina, a clinical psychology major at Radcliffe College. After graduating in 1964, he moved back to Puerto Rico where Rina joined him. They were married in 1966 and lived on the Lower East Side of Manhattan until February 1968, when they left to spend several years criss-crossing the continent, with stops in, among other places, California, Mexico and Canada.

In 1967, they stopped in San Francisco for the Summer of Love, where he found “such a wonderful sense of openness.” In 1968 they abandoned their East 10th Street walkup because Rina did not think New York City was a place to raise kids. One of his neighbors urged him not to leave, arguing that he would become a great writer if he remained in New York.

“In New York I might have gotten a much greater reputation; perhaps I might have been world famous,” he writes in The Heyday. But I also thought about how shallow greatness is in New York — how it depends on reputation. What this place, what Heyday has allowed me to do is to create a real community, to be really useful, to create a home for certain people and certain ideas.”

The couple sold everything and headed west again, this time in a VW bus Margolin bought for $300 in Queens. In California, they lived in a campground in Big Sur for a couple of months, hiking everywhere, learning about local plants and living off wild foods. With a typewriter in the back of the bus, Margolin began writing about forests and forestry. During this period his articles were published in Science Digest, National Parks and The Nation magazine.

Langley Perer obit

Langley Perer Loses Cancer Battle; Manager And Producer Was 44

 She repped Olivia Milch, Stacey Harmon and Nick Schutt, worked on the 2011 remake of ‘Arthur’ and was “one of the great broads of all time.”

She was not on the list.

Unimaginably sad post-holiday news. Langley Perer, a beloved manager and producer, died June 25 following a four-year battle with cancer. She was 44 and leaves behind writer-producer husband Scott Rosenberg and their two children.

Perer, who produced the films I Am Number Four, Dude and Arthur, was a longtime manager-producer at Mosaic, leaving in 2017 to focus on family and creative projects. That included Treatable, a half-hour dark comedy that was based on her own battle with cancer. She wrote that with her former client Laura Lekkos.

Known for a force-of-nature determination, vivacious personality and infectious wit, she began her career as an assistant at Gersh, joined Benderspink as a literary manager in 2003, and then moved to Mosaic where she quickly rose up the ranks. During her tenure, Perer launched and fostered the careers of many writers and directors including Olivia Milch, Stacey Harmon, Nick Schutt, Phil and Brandon Murphy, Max Nichols, Ryan Engle and Lekkos.

“A one-line quote is not enough to describe Langley,” said Mosaic principal Jimmy Miller. “The brightest of lights, who would change the temperature in the room. Mother, wife, teammate, manager/producer. Funny, smart, and beautiful. And, apologies to all of the sensitive people out there who won’t understand (but Langley and those of us who knew her will), she was one of the great broads of all time.”

Echoing these sentiments, Milch wrote: “There was no one smarter, funnier, more vibrant, more committed or more believing. She brought joy to the pursuit of the profound truths and a daringness that was contagious. Creating art with Langley was one of the greatest gifts of my life. I will miss her heart, mind, and soul every day.”

Perer went down fighting. From the Dana-Farber Institute, where she and Rosenberg donated $2 million for clinical trials:

“In 2017, a mammogram revealed that Langley Perer had ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), the very earliest, and highly treatable, stage of breast cancer. Because she also tested positive for BRCA2, an inherited gene mutation that increases her risk of developing certain cancers over her lifetime, she decided to undergo a double mastectomy to ensure the cancer wouldn’t return. It was a difficult decision, but afterward, she felt ready to move forward with her life, her career, and taking care of her two small children, Bowie, age 5, and Sawyer, age 7.

But then in 2021, Langley noticed one of her eyelids was drooping. Another series of tests later, she received devastating news: at 40 years old, she had leptomeningeal metastases. Her cancer had spread to her bones, brain, and spinal fluid.

Leptomeningeal brain metastases (LBM) are rare and difficult to treat, with progress stalled largely due to lack of funding for clinical trials that include this specific subset of patients. Langley and her husband, Scott Rosenberg, both work in the film industry and are savvy about getting projects off the ground. They have applied this approach to philanthropically supporting the work of Langley’s doctor, Nancy Lin, MD, with a substantial $2 million commitment —t he largest gift ever to LBM research at Dana-Farber. Lin serves as director of the Metastatic Breast Cancer Program and of the Program for Patients with Breast Cancer Brain Metastases at Dana-Farber, and is considered one of the foremost experts on LBM in the country.”

Langley launched and fostered the careers of such writers, directors and producers as Olivia Milch (Ocean’s Eight, The Better Sister), Stacey Harmon (Cobra Kai), Nick Schutt (Outer Banks), Phil and Brandon Murphy (Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard), Max Nichols, Ryan Engle and Laura Lekkos.

Said Milch: “There was no one smarter, funnier, more vibrant, more committed or more believing. She brought joy to the pursuit of the profound truths and a daringness that was contagious. Creating art with Langley was one of the greatest gifts of my life. I will miss her heart, mind and soul every day.”

Raised in Pittsburgh, Langley Wilson Perer graduated from Tulane University and began her career as an assistant at Gersh. She joined Benderspink as a literary manager in 2003 — she went on to serve as an agent and vp production — and moved to Mosaic in 2011, moving quickly up the ranks.

Perer, who produced the films I Am Number Four, Dude and Arthur, was a longtime manager-producer at Mosaic, leaving in 2017 to focus on family and creative projects. That included Treatable, a half-hour dark comedy that was based on her own battle with cancer. She wrote that with her former client Laura Lekkos.

Known for a force-of-nature determination, vivacious personality and infectious wit, she began her career as an assistant at Gersh, joined Benderspink as a literary manager in 2003, and then moved to Mosaic where she quickly rose up the ranks

Barbara Holdridge obit

Barbara Holdridge

 July 26, 1929 - June 9, 2025 (95 years old)

 She was not on the list.

It is with deep sorrow that we announce the death of Barbara Holdridge of Baltimore, Maryland, who passed away on June 9, 2025, at the age of 95, leaving to mourn family and friends. You can send your sympathy in the guestbook provided and share it with the family.

Together with her business partner, Marianne (Roney) Mantell, she co-founded Caedmon Records in 1952. As an entirely female-owned company Caedmon stressed gender equality and focused on many women's writings. She was a pioneer in the genre of spoken word literary recordings, and is considered to have laid the foundation for modern audio books.

As Barbara departs from our midst, her spirit ascends to join the cosmic dance of stars, a shimmering constellation of memories that will forever grace the night sky of the hearts of those who loved Barbara. Though Barbara may no longer walk beside us, her legacy lives on — a testament to the enduring power of love to transcend the boundaries of time and space.

She was predeceased by: her husband Lawrence Barrett Holdridge; her sister Gloria Cohen; and her parents, Howard Cohen and Bertha Cohen. She is survived by: her daughters, Diana Holdridge and Eleanor Holdridge; and her granddaughters, Megan Archibeque and Eliza Archibeque.

Contributions in her memory may be sent to the American Horticultural Society, online at ahsgardening.org.

Holdridge, American recording and book consultant, editor. Named to Hunter College Hall of Fame, 1972, National Women's Hall of Fame, 2001; recipient American Shakespeare Festival award, 1962, New York City certified of appreciation, 1972, Lifetime Achievement award, Audio Publications Association, 2001, Peabody Institutional award, 1991, Preservation Project award, Baltimore County History Trust, 2007.

Background

Holdridge, Barbara was born on July 26, 1929 in New York City. Daughter of Herbert L. and Bertha (Gold) Cohen.

Education

Bachelor of Arts, Hunter College, 1950.

Career

Assistant editor, Liveright Public Corporation, New York City, 1950-1952; co-founder, Caedmon Records, Inc., New York City, 1952; partner, Caedmon Records, Inc., 1952-1960; president, Caedmon Records, Inc., 1960-1962; treasurer, Caedmon Records, Inc., 1962-1970; president, Caedmon Records, Inc., 1970-1975; founder, Stemmer House Publications Inc., Owings Mills, Maryland., 1975; president, Stemmer House Publications Inc., since 1975. Co-founder, vice president Shakespeare Recording Southern, Inc., New York City, 1960-1970, TheatreRec. Society, Inc., New York City, 1964-1970.

Founder BEDE Prodns., 1984. Co-founder History Recording Society, Inc., New York City, 1964, president, 1964-1970. Lecturer onAmmi Phillips, 1959.

Lecturer on book public, since 1992. Adjunct Professor writing media Loyola College, Baltimore, 1987-1991.

Achievements

Barbara Holdridge has been listed as a noteworthy recording and book consultant, editor by Marquis Who's Who.