Deaths in March - 2025

Architect Ricardo Scofidio died March 6 aged 89. Scofidio's works with his spouse and architect partner, Elizabeth Diller, include Flesh: architectural probes, Blur: the making of nothing, and Back to the front: tourisms of war.

NPR research librarian Kee Malesky died March 2 at the age of 74. They wrote Learn Something New Every Day: 365 Facts to Fulfill Your Life and All Facts Considered: The Essential Library of Inessential Knowledge.

New York City journalist Selwyn Raab died March 4 aged 90. Raab wrote extensively about the Mafia, culminating in his book Five families : the rise, decline, and resurgence of America's most powerful Mafia empires. Raab also investigated wrongful convictions, including that of Rubin "Hurricane" Carter. His book Justice in the back room became the basis for the "Kojak" television series.

Paranormal investigator and former magician Joe Nickell died March 6 aged 81. Nickell's works include Looking for a miracle : weeping icons, relics, stigmata, visions & healing cure, Secrets of the sideshows, and Real-life X-files : investigating the paranorma.

Nutrition educator, food policy expert, and organic gardener Joan Dye Gussow died March 7 aged 96. Her works include Chicken Little, tomato sauce, and agriculture : who will produce tomorrow's food?, Growing, older : a chronicle of death, life, and vegetables, and This organic life : confessions of a suburban homesteader.

Playwright and novelist Athol Fugard died March 8 aged 92. Fugard's works include the plays "Master Harold" ...and the boys and Tsotsi, and the Notebooks, 1960-1977. Fugard, a Afrikaner (white) South African, wrote during and after the apartheid era, featuring people of all skin tones.

(This is not the most graceful way to describe it, but it's important to note.)

Film critic David Ehrenstein died on March 12 aged 78. Ehrenstein's works include Open Secret: Gay Hollywood, 1928-1998, Rock on Film, and The Scorsese Picture: The Art and Life of Martin Scorsese. Perhaps his best known work, though, never made it to book form -- a 2007 op-ed for the Los Angeles Times with the deliberately provocative title "Obama, the Magic Negro."

I knew David briefly in the early 2000s. We weren't close friends, but spent a few evenings together as part of the same large group. He was an encyclopedia of film; it was impossible to stump him with a movie he hadn't seen. Fiercely opinionated, not one to suffer fools gladly, and not always the most tactful man if you were (in his opinion) the fool he was being asked to suffer. Conversations with David could get loud and intense, but when the debate was over and the topic moved elsewhere, he was quick to set aside those heated passions. I wish I'd gotten to know him better.

Philosopher of science, feminist epistemologist, and professor Sandra G Harding died March 5 aged 89. Harding's works include Whose science? Whose knowledge? : thinking from women's lives, Is science multicultural? : postcolonialisms, feminisms, and epistemologies, and (as editor) The feminist standpoint theory reader : intellectual and political controversies.

Film scholar Linda Williams died March 12 aged 78. Williams edited Reinventing Film Studies (with Christine Gledhill) and Porn Studies and wrote Hard core : power, pleasure, and the "frenzy of the visible" and Playing the race card : melodramas of black and white from Uncle Tom to O.J. Simpson.

Novelist and "Brixton Bard" Alex Wheatle died on 16 March aged 62, of prostate cancer. His books included Brixton Rock, East of Acre Lane and a series of YA books including Crongton Knights.

Writer, editor, publisher, and teacher Felice Picano died March 12 aged 81. Picano founded SeaHorse Press and later cofounded the Gay Presses of New York, publishing many works of queer writers. Picano's own works include Like People in History: A Gay American Epic, The lure (the first gay Book of the Month Club novel), and the memoir Ambidextrous.

Heavyweight boxing champion and businessman George Foreman died March 21 at the age of 76. His books include George Foreman Grilling Playbook - 60 Crowd Pleasing Recipes, Knockout Entrepreneur, Fatherhood By George: Hard-Won Advice on Being a Dad.

Former First Lady of Massachusetts and mental health advocate Kitty Dukakis died March 21 at the age of 88. She wrote Shock: The Healing Power of Electroconvulsive Therapy and Now You Know.

>10 varielle: Kitty Dukakis was the First Lady of Massachusetts, not Maine.

>11 sosullivan: Well, Maine would have been lucky to have her. Corrected.

Journalist, biographer, writer, and documentary film producer Dennis McDougal died March 22 aged 77. McDougal's works include Privileged son : Otis Chandler and the rise and fall of the L.A. times dynasty, Angel of Darkness: The True Story of Randy Kraft and the Most HeinousMurder Spree, and Dylan: The Biography.

Former New York Times executive editor Max Frankel died March 23 aged 94. Frankel worked at the paper for nearly fifty years. His works include The times of my life and my life with the Times and High noon in the Cold War : Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Media scholar, professor, and former radio host of "Media Matters" Robert W. McChesney died March 25 aged 72. McChesney's works include Rich media, poor democracy : communication politics in dubious times, The problem of the media : U.S. communication politics in the twenty-first century, and Digital disconnect : how capitalism is turning the Internet against democracy.

Lisa Jane Smith, who wrote as L.J. Smith, died March 8 aged 66. Smith's works include the Vampire Diaries series (yes, the basis for the TV show), the Night World series, and The Secret Circle series.

Actor Richard Chamberlain died March 29 at the age of 90. He wrote My Life in Haiku and Shattered Love: A Memoir. 😢RIP. One of my favs.

Novelist Ken Bruen died March 29 at the age of 74. His books include Galway's Edge , Deadly Games People Play, and Galway Confidential: A Jack Taylor Mystery (Jack Taylor Mysteries).

>15 varielle: I'm terribly sad about Ken Bruen. I used to go to a lot of crime fiction conventions and met him several times. He was a lovely man.

Painter and illustrator Robert E. McGinnis died March 10 aged 99. McGinnis's work appeared in magazines, on hundreds of book covers, and on dozens of movie posters. On LibraryThing, you can see McGinnis's artwork on the covers of Neverwhere and Stardust, Where the red fern grows, Touch not the cat, many Michael Shayne books, and works from the publisher Hard Case Crime.

Drummer, journalist, editor, and literary translator Tim Mohr died March 31 aged 55. Mohr wrote Burning Down the Haus: Punk Rock, Revolution, and the Fall of the Berlin Wall and cowrote musicians' memoirs such as The last holiday : a memoir (which Mohr finished after Gil Scott-Heron died). Mohr also translated Feuchtgebiete/Wetlands by Charlotte Roche, Tschick/Why we took the car by Wolfgang Herrndorf, and Die schärfsten Gerichte der tatarischen Küche/Die schärfsten Gerichte der tatarischen Küche plus six other novels by Alina Bronsky.

Children's author Jean Van Leeuwen died March 3 aged 87. Van Leeuwen's works include Bound for Oregon, Tales of Amanda Pig (from the Oliver and Amanda Pig series), and The Great Cheese Conspiracy (from the Merciless Marvin the Magnificent series).

Journalist and writer Peter Bichsel died March 15 aged 89. Bichsel's works include the short story collections Kindergeschichten/There is no such place as America, Eigentlich möchte Frau Blum den Milchmann kennenlernen/And really Frau Blum would very much like to meet the milkman, and Cherubin Hammer und Cherubin Hammer.

Journalist and cultural critic Richard Bernstein died March 31 aged 80. Bernstein's works include From the center of the earth: The search for the truth about China, The East, the West, and sex : a history of erotic encounters, and Ultimate journey : retracing the path of an ancient Buddhist monk who crossed Asia in search of enlightenment.

Crime writer Kerry Greenwood died April 6 aged 69. Greenwood's works include: Cocaine Blues, the first book in the Phryne Fisher series (later made into a TV series); Earthly delights, which started the Corinna Chapman series; Out of the black land; and A different sort of real : the diary of Charlotte McKenzie, Melbourne 1918-1919.

Researcher of sound, disability, media theory and historiography, and technology Jonathan Sterne died March 25 aged 54. Sterne's works include The audible past : cultural origins of sound reproduction, MP3 : the meaning of a format, and Diminished faculties : a political phenomenology of impairment. He also edited The Sound Studies Reader.

Horror writer Nancy Kilpatrick died March 31 aged 78. Kilpatrick's works include The goth bible : a compendium for the darkly inclined, the Power of the Blood series, and (as editor) Tesseracts Thirteen: Chilling Tales from the Great White North.

Television producer Bill Dare died March 1 at the age of 64. He wrote Brian Gulliver's Travels and Natural Selection.

Historian Marysa Navarro died March 2 at the age of 90. Her books include Women in Latin America and the Caribbean: Restoring Women to History (Restoring Women to History) and The Reader's Companion to U.S. Women's History.

Pastor Sonny Arguinzoni died March 3 at the age of 85. His books include Sonny, Vision for the Outcast, Internalizing the Vision, and Treasures Out of Darkness.

Academic Margaret Brazier died March 4 at the age of 74. Her books include Medicine, patients and the law: Sixth edition , Bioethics, medicine and the criminal law Volume III, Medicine and bioethics in the theatre of the criminal process, and Protecting the Vulnerable: Autonomy and Consent in Health Care.

Essayist Jean-Claude Barreau died March 5 at the age of 91. His books include L'Eglise va-t-elle disparaitre ?, Toute l'histoire du monde illustrée, and Toute l'histoire de France.

Management consultant Meredith Belbin died March 6 at the age of 98. His books include Managing Without Power, Beyond the Team, and Changing the Way We Work.

Paleontologist Richard Fortey died March 7 at the age of 79. His books include Dry Storeroom No. 1: The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum and Earth: An Intimate History.

Epidemiologist King Holmes died March 9 at the age of 87. His books include Major infectious diseases and Sexually Transmitted Diseases.

Poet and writer Marjorie Agosin died March 10 at the age of 70. Her works include I Lived on Butterfly Hill, Inhabiting Memory: Essays on Memory and Human Rights in the Americas, and Magical Sites: Women Travelers in 19th Century Latin America.

Linguist Norbert Cyffer died March 12 at the age of 81. His books include Negation patterns in West African languages and beyond and A Sketch of Kanuri.

Novelist Lil Bahadur Chettri died March 13 at the age of 92. She wrote Mountains Painted with Turmeric.

Science fiction story writer Lyn Venable died March 31 aged 97. Her most famous short story, Time Enough at Last, was made into a "Twilight Zone" episode, which starred Burgess Meredith as the guy who finally has enough time to read all the books without interruption. (Some of us can relate to that desire, I'm sure.)