Malcolm Margolin is an author, publisher, and former executive director of Heyday Books, an independent nonprofit publisher and cultural institution in Berkeley, California. From his founding of Heyday in 1974 until his retirement at the end of 2015, he oversaw the publication of several hundred books and the creation of two quarterly magazines: News from Native California, devoted to the history and ongoing cultural concerns of California Indians, and Bay Nature, devoted to the natural history of the San Francisco Bay Area. In the fall of 2017, he established a new enterprise, the California Institute for Community, Art, and Nature to continue and expand upon the work that he began more than forty years ago. Margolin is the author/editor of several books including The Ohlone Way: Indian Life in the San Francisco-Monterey Bay Area, named by the San Francisco Chronicle as one of the hundred most important books of the twentieth century by a western writer. His essays and articles have appeared in a number of periodicals including The Nation, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Los Angeles Times.
Early life and education
Margolin was born in Boston, Massachusetts on October 27, 1940, to a Lithuanian mother and American father. He attended Boston Latin School. Margolin continued his studies and graduated with a degree in English Literature from Harvard University in 1964. He met his future wife Rina while attending Harvard, she was a psychology major at Radcliffe College. After graduating from college he lived in Puerto Rico for two years between 1964 and 1966, followed by living in New York City in the Lower East Side neighborhood from 1966 until 1968. Traveling on a road trip to Yosemite National Park in summer of 1967 and eventually moving to California with Rina in 1969.
Career
Margolin has lectured widely and has served as advisor and mentor to many other publishers. In addition to founding Heyday, News from Native California, and Bay Nature, he co-founded the Alliance for California Tradition Arts, an organization devoted to California folk arts, and has served on its board since its beginning. In 2001, he co-founded Inlandia Institute, a literary center in Riverside, California. He currently serves on the Publication Committee of the Book Club of California and devotes time and effort to a number of environmental, cultural, and social justice organizations and causes.
Personal life
He has lived in Berkeley, California since the late 1960s, where he and his wife, Rina, have raised three children: Reuben, Sadie, and Jacob.
