Marvin Kaye

Marvin Nathan Kaye (March 10, 1938 – May 13, 2021) was an American mystery, fantasy, science fiction, horror author, anthologist, and editor. He was also a magician and theater actor. Kaye was a World Fantasy Award winner and served as co-publisher and editor of Weird Tales Magazine.

Early years Kaye was born in Philadelphia, the son of Morris and Theresa (Baroski) Kaye. He received a Bachelor of Arts in liberal arts at Penn State in 1960, and a Master of Arts in English literature and theater in 1962.

Career Kaye served as a reporter for Grit Publishing Company from 1963 to 1965, an assistant managing editor for Business Travel Magazine in 1965, and a senior editor for Harcourt Brace Jovanovich from 1966 to 1970. In 1970, he went to work as a freelance writer. He was a lecturer at The New School for Social Research in New York City in 1975, He can be heard portraying several characters in The Open Book audiobook Take My Planet, Please! (Metamorphic Press/JestMaster Audio, 2021).

In 1975, Kaye co-founded "The Open Book," New York City's first and longest-lived readers theatre company, along with his wife, Saralee, and other noted theatre professionals. Kaye also established The Open Book's educational outreach division and curriculum, as well as an annual national playwriting competition co-sponsored by Doubleday's Stage & Screen Book Club. Kaye wrote two books about readers theatre: Readers Theatre: What It Is, How to Stage It, published in 1995 by Wildside Press; and From Page to Stage: Selecting and Adapting Literature for Readers Theatre, published in 1996 by Fireside Theatre. He also edited Frantic Comedy: 8 Plays of Knockabout Fun, published in 1993 by Fireside Theatre. Several of the plays were presented by The Open Book under Kaye's direction.

The Open Book performed Kaye's adaptation of his own novel, The Last Christmas of Ebenezer Scrooge, annually for several years. Kaye's final stage performances were in the revival of The Last Christmas of Ebenezer Scrooge in a short run of the play, also directed by Kaye, in December 2019 at the Pushkin Hall Theater in NYC.

Kaye authored nineteen novels including the science fiction cult classics, The Incredible Umbrella and (co-authored with Parke Godwin) The Masters of Solitude, and the critically acclaimed mysteries Bullets for Macbeth and My Son, the Druggist. Kaye's last book, published in 2020 by Metamorphic Press, was Quest for the Pastried Peach, In the summer of 2011, Kaye purchased America's oldest supernatural periodical (dating back to 1923), Weird Tales Magazine, with John Harlacher. Kaye was editor and co-publisher (with Harlacher). In addition to other artistic changes, Kaye instituted themed issues.

In August 2012, Kaye announced that Weird Tales was going to publish an excerpt from Victoria Foyt's controversial novel Save the Pearls, which many critics accused of featuring racist stereotyping. Kaye wrote an essay titled "A Thoroughly NONRACIST Novel" defending his decision to publish the excerpt. The essay and Kaye's decision to publish the excerpt were criticized, particularly by N. K. Jemisin and Jim C. Hines, and the publisher subsequently announced that Weird Tales no longer had plans to run the excerpt.

Kaye was also a regular columnist, writing "Marvin Kaye's Nth Dimension" for Space and Time, a science fiction magazine.

Kaye was a member of the Authors Guild, the Dramatists Guild of America, the Actors' Equity Association, The Broadway League, and The Sons of the Desert (of which he served as president from 1974 to 1976). He was also an honorary member of the Mark Twain Society. Saralee Kaye died July 12, 2006, of complications from endometrial cancer in New York City. The couple resided in New York. He is buried in the Sanctuary of Abraham & Sarah Mausoleum in Paramus, New Jersey.