BURACK, Sylvia K. 1916-2003

(Sylvia K. Kammerman)

OBITUARY NOTICE—See index for CA sketch: Born December 16, 1916, in Hartford, CT; died February 14, 2003, in Boston, MA. Editor, publisher, and author. Burack was best known as the former publisher of the advice magazine The Writer. She was a graduate of Smith College, where she received a B.A. in 1938. In 1941 she went to work for her husband as an associate editor for Writer, Inc., and Plays, Inc., in Boston, and took over the publishing companies in 1978, when her husband died; she retired in 1999. The Writer was designed to teach aspiring writers the mechanics of good writing and offer advice on how to get published, and Burack became highly respected among both aspiring and established authors for her good advice and encouragement. Burack also published Drama Magazine for Young People, from 1978 to 1999, which was all about plays for young audiences. In addition to her work as an editor and publisher, she was the author of numerous books about writing, some under her maiden name of Kammerman, including Writing the Short Story (1942), Writing and Selling the Romance Novel (1983), Writing Mystery and Crime Fiction (1985), How to Write and Sell Mystery Fiction (1990), How to Write and Sell Your Articles (1997), Writing for Children and Young Adults (2000), and the annual The Writer's Handbook; she also edited numerous collections of plays for children such as The Big Book of Holiday Plays (1990) and The Big Book of Skits (1996).

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Boston Herald, February 16, 2003, p. 32.

New York Times, March 17, 2003, p. A23.