Sandy McIntosh is an American poet, editor, memoirist, software developer, and teacher.
Early life and education
McIntosh was born in Rockville Centre, New York. He attended the Waldorf School until seventh grade, when he was enrolled at the New York Military Academy, from which he graduated, at the suggestion of Fred Trump, a business acquaintance of McIntosh's father. Trump's son Donald was told to help the younger McIntosh navigate school. McIntosh, an underclassman, was enrolled because his father felt he needed to get rid of "all that spiritual nonsense" of his Waldorf School education. McIntosh has written and been interviewed extensively about how the New York Military Academy's culture of hazing formed Donald Trump's behavior. He received a BA from Southampton College, L.I.U., an MFA from The School of the Arts, Columbia University and a Ph.D. from the Union Institute & University. While at Southampton College, McIntosh participated in informal apprenticeships with the poet David Ignatow and the poet, novelist and translator H.R. Hays.
Career
A poet, memoirist and writer known for wry reconsideration of the familiar, his work has appeared in The New York Times, The Daily Beast, the New York Daily News, The Wall Street Journal, American Book Review, Talisman: A Journal of Contemporary Poetry and Poetics, in print, and in online journals. His interviews include Phillip Lopate, and Carlos Castaneda scholar and Native American Activist, Jay Courtney Fikes. McIntosh headed up the H.R. Hays Distinguished Poets series at Guild Hall from 1980 to 2000. His original poetry in a screenplay won the Silver Medal in the Film Festival of the Americas. His collaboration with Denise Duhamel, 237 More Reasons to Have Sex, appears in The Best American Poetry.
In the early 1980s, he edited Wok Talk, a Chinese cooking periodical published by Newsletter Publishing Associates and created an early computer software recipe program, The Best of Wok Talk. Martin Yan wrote frequently for the publication. McIntosh took a job with The Software Toolworks, which had published his cooking program, where he helped develop the best-selling program Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing!. His work included writing 750 typing lessons and an extensive user's guide. From 1990-2000 he was Managing Editor of Confrontation, a literary magazine published by Long Island University; and a former literature and creative writing professor at Hofstra University and Long Island University. Since 2001, he has served as Managing Editor and Publisher of Marsh Hawk Press.
Selected bibliography
Memoir
Lesser Lights: More Tales From a Hampton's Apprenticeship, Marsh Hawk Press; February 1, 2019;
A Hole In the Ocean: A Hamptons' Apprenticeship, Marsh Hawk Press, 2016,
