M Mark lived an incandescent life. Her wit and generosity helped generations of writers, students, family, and friends burn more brightly.
When M moved to New York City in the late 1970s, she brought along two degrees from Northwestern University, and what she once called her “one claim to exoticism in New York” — a childhood spent in Waterloo, Iowa.
Though she had only ever edited for school publications, with a determined confidence and, “a couple of days of intense labor with a pencil,” she secured a job as an editor at The Village Voice. She went on to found VLS, The Village Voice Literary Supplement. Freed by the notion that the supplement wasn’t expected to amount to much, she and her team envisioned a publication that boldly mixed the literary and the scholarly, imaginative writing and critical theory, pop and high culture, images and words. It did, in fact, amount to much. M served as the VLS editor and publisher for 15 years.
For the rest of her career, she continued to stake out territory for writers on the margins. She became a founding editor of PEN America: A Journal for Writers and Readers. M took great pride in the work PEN did to defend dissident writers who spoke out against authority, and to connect writers to the world.
Throughout, M worked broadly and steadily as an editor and writer. She published journalistic and scholarly criticism of literature, film, music, theater, photography, and art, and edited numerous books. She worked as developmental editor for Columbia University Press and as director of the Writers’ Center.
And, of course, she taught — first at Columbia and NYU, then at Bard College. Finally, in 2001, M joined the Vassar College English department. For the next 21 years, she taught literature, writing, and media studies to countless Vassar students. M brought light into her classrooms — helping students expand their perspectives, discover their voices, and find their nerve.
As a writer, editor, scholar, and teacher, her expansive and incisive mind is vividly remembered.
As a beloved mentor, colleague, grandmother, stepmother, wife, and friend, she is deeply missed.
When M moved to New York City in the late 1970s, she brought along two degrees from Northwestern University, and what she once called her “one claim to exoticism in New York” — a childhood spent in Waterloo, Iowa.
Though she had only ever edited for school publications, with a determined confidence and, “a couple of days of intense labor with a pencil,” she secured a job as an editor at The Village Voice. She went on to found VLS, The Village Voice Literary Supplement. Freed by the notion that the supplement wasn’t expected to amount to much, she and her team envisioned a publication that boldly mixed the literary and the scholarly, imaginative writing and critical theory, pop and high culture, images and words. It did, in fact, amount to much. M served as the VLS editor and publisher for 15 years.
For the rest of her career, she continued to stake out territory for writers on the margins. She became a founding editor of PEN America: A Journal for Writers and Readers. M took great pride in the work PEN did to defend dissident writers who spoke out against authority, and to connect writers to the world.
Throughout, M worked broadly and steadily as an editor and writer. She published journalistic and scholarly criticism of literature, film, music, theater, photography, and art, and edited numerous books. She worked as developmental editor for Columbia University Press and as director of the Writers’ Center.
And, of course, she taught — first at Columbia and NYU, then at Bard College. Finally, in 2001, M joined the Vassar College English department. For the next 21 years, she taught literature, writing, and media studies to countless Vassar students. M brought light into her classrooms — helping students expand their perspectives, discover their voices, and find their nerve.
As a writer, editor, scholar, and teacher, her expansive and incisive mind is vividly remembered.
As a beloved mentor, colleague, grandmother, stepmother, wife, and friend, she is deeply missed.
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