Barry N. Malzberg

Barry Nathaniel Malzberg (born July 24, 1939) is an American writer and editor, most often of science fiction and fantasy.

Overview

Malzberg attended Syracuse University from 1956 to 1960. He worked as an investigator for the New York City Department of Welfare from 1961–62, and 1963-64. In 1963 he was employed as a reimbursement agent for the New York State Department of Mental Health. He married Joyce Zelnick in 1964. Initially in his post-graduate work Malzberg sought to establish himself as a playwright as well as a prose-fiction writer. He was awarded a Schubert Foundation Playwriting fellowship from 1964-1965 at Syracuse University. In 1965 he was awarded the Cornelia Ward Creative writing fellowship but he found he was unable to sell his work to any of the literary magazines. In 1965, he had begun working for the Scott Meredith Literary Agency, and would intermittently continue with SMLA through the next several decades, being one of its last caretakers.

His first published story was “The Bed” under the pseudonym “Nathan Herbert” in the men’s magazine “Wildcat”. His first science fiction sale was “We're Coming Through the Window” in Galaxy, August 1967. He repurposed existing stories for his next science fiction sales. He first found commercial and critical success with publication of his surreal novelette "Final War" in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction under the name K. M. O'Donnell in 1968.