Richard Elman (writer)

His book of poems Cathedral-Tree-Train (1992) is a brooding, unsentimental but loving elegy for a friend, abstract-expressionist painter Keith Sanzenbach.

Contemporary Authors Autobiography Series, Volume 3, ed. Adele Sarkissisan, Gale Research Company, Detroit, Michigan, 1986.

Throughout the 1980s, Nicaragua colored Elman's imaginative life. His book of poems In Chontales, his comic novel The Menu Cypher, and his collection of stories Disco Frito are all set in Nicaragua.

In 1968, Elman published The 28th Day of Elul, the first of a trilogy of novels, followed by Lilo's Diary (1968) and The Reckoning (1969). Each novel tells the same story from a different point of view about the fate of the Yagodahs, a Hungarian family at the end of World War II. Elie Wiesel said of The 28th Day of Elul in his review for The New York Times: "Born and raised in New York City, Richard M. Elman was barely 10 when the nightmare ended in Europe. Yet he evokes some of its living fragmentary images as though his voice came from within."

In 1968, Elman signed the "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments to protest the Vietnam War.

In 1967, Elman published another book of reportage, Ill-at-Ease in Compton, about the mechanisms of discrimination at work in Compton, California, a city with a large lower-middle class population.

At various times during his career, he taught creative writing: at Bennington College (1967–68), Bennington College Summer Writing Workshop (1974-), Columbia University (1968-1976), Sarah Lawrence (1970), The University of Pennsylvania (1981–83), University of Arizona (Fall 1985), Notre Dame, and Stony Brook University.

In 1965, Elman worked as a research associate for the School of Social Work Research Center at Columbia University. His nonfiction The Poorhouse State: The American Way of Life On Public Assistance evolved from those experiences; he spent two years interviewing people on relief on New York's Lower East Side.

Between 1963 and 1966 much of Elman's income came from writing freelance pieces for magazines, including Cavalier, Commonweal, The Nation, and The New Republic. He also reviewed books for The New York Times.

Elman returned to New York and worked for the Pacifica Foundation, WBAI, as a public affairs director from 1961-64. He helped Bob Fass, a boyhood friend, get work there. At WBAI, Elman produced radio documentaries, such as the sound montage "The Last Days of Hart Crane", which featured tape-recorded interviews of people who had been close to Crane. The poet Robert Lowell came to the studio to listen to the montage, and later contributed to a second montage on Ford Madox Ford's American years.

Elman studied English and creative writing at Stanford University (M.A. 1957), where he came under the influence of poet and critic Yvor Winters.

At Syracuse University (B. A., 1955), Elman's teachers, Daniel Curley and Donald Dike, encouraged his writing. At Syracuse, Elman met Emily Schorr, who became a painter. They married in 1955, and in 1964 their daughter Margaret was born. The marriage ended in divorce. In 1979, Elman married Alice (Neufeld) Goode, a teacher, who was his wife until his death. Their daughter Lila was born in 1981.

Richard M. Elman (April 23, 1934 – December 31, 1997) was an American novelist, poet, journalist, and teacher. He was born in Brooklyn, New York. His parents were Yiddish-speaking and came to the United States at the turn of the 20th century from Russo-Poland. His boyhood is captured in his comic novel Fredi & Shirl & The Kids: An Autobiography In Fables.

In the 1930s, Winters had been a friend of David Lamson, who had worked at Stanford University Press. Winters defended his friend when Lamson was accused and convicted of killing his wife; after serving time on death row, Lamson was retried and freed after two more trials and hung juries. Elman became familiar with the events, and the crime became the springboard for his novel An Education In Blood. Winters was portrayed in the novel through the character of Jim Hill.