Remembering Murray Teigh Bloom: 1917 - 2009
with Norman Lobsenz, Katharine D. Fishman, Tania Grossinger, Bonnie Remsberg, and George Devine

ASJA mourns the passing of founding member and past president Murray Teigh Bloom on February 10 at age 92.
A driving force behind the 1948 inception of the professional organization for independent non-fiction writers, Murray supported and mentored hundreds of colleagues over the decades as chair of the Editor-Writer Relations Committee.

Serving for many years on the ASJA Board of Directors and Executive Council, he was also chairman of the ASJA Charitable Trust, successfully steering its Writers Emergency Assistance Fund (WEAF) for writers in dire straits.

Memorial contributions to WEAF (www.weaf.org) may be made in his name. Our deepest condolences to his loved ones; we miss him already..

Murray Teigh Bloom, one of the founders of the Society of Magazine Writers, and its president in 1959, died recently at a retirement community in North Branford, Connecticut. Murray was 92. In his long career as a freelancer, Murray wrote several hundred articles for most major magazines, ranging from the old Collier's and Saturday Evening Post to Reader's Digest, Harper's, and the Atlantic Monthly.

He also authored half a dozen books, most of which dealt with arcane aspects of money and finance. Among them were such titles as The Brotherhood of Money: The Secret World of Banknote Printers; Money of Their Own: True Stories of the World's Greatest Counterfeiters; The Trouble with Wall Street; The Man Who Stole Portugal; and The Trouble with Lawyers. Murray also wrote a novel, The Thirteenth Man, which was made into the movie The Last Embrace.

In a 1993 news story, The New York Times described Murray as "a freelancer's freelancer," the quintessential independent journalist. Murray began freelancing in 1938, after getting his M.S. from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, continued writing during his Army service in World War II, and became a full-time freelancer after the war. In 2004, Murray was honored by the School of Journalism's Alumni Association with its "outstanding alumnus" award.

A devoted Society member, Murray spent many years as chair of the Writer-Editor Relations Committee (now called the Grievance committee) fighting to get members the fees they were owed and the rights they should own. In 60 years as a member, he saw ASJA grow from the original group of perhaps a dozen men and women to today's 1,260-plus. He had recently said: "It never occurred to me there could be as many as 100 people making a living in this business."

—Norman Lobsen

When I joined ASJA in 1982, Murray was the epitome of what the Society could do for you. Smart, fatherly advice if a publisher or client tried to pull a fast one, an overview of what was being done to writers and what relief was open to them, a voice of caution. This is what he was known for.

Then, in 1989, he took over the LMF (Llewellyn Miller Fund). At that time it was in deep trouble, with assets a measly $42,000, a decline in contributions, applications; and grants, and a chair who didn't believe it was worth preserving and wanted to turn it over to the Authors Guild. Murray couldn't let that happen. Though the métier of freelance writing had been good to him—he and his family lived a comfortable suburban life in King's Point, New York—his years of listening to members' woes had given him a keen appreciation of how often things went wrong. Moreover, he was particularly moved by the ordeal of Paulette Cooper, who suffered nine years of harassment, death threats, and lawsuits after the publication of her critical piece on the Church of Scientology. At that point, Paulette's problem didn't meet the criteria for a Llewellyn Miller grant. He convinced the Executive Council that the Fund was worth saving and expanded its criteria to include "an extraordinary professional crisis" (thus also securing a $1000 donation from the by-then recovered Paulette).

After some nine years of running the Fund, the then octogenarian Murray began to think of grooming a successor. He had been a member of the committee marking ASJA's 50th anniversary, and we got to know each other that way. He asked if I might be interested. Those were less harried times and Murray was a precise man: He wanted to be sure the fit was good, so he brought me on to the board of trustees for a training period of a couple of years to see how I worked out. Mostly he was concerned that I understand the grantmaking process and how to evaluate a borderline case.

I would come in to the office and we would go over the applications together. Murray was as skeptical of grant applications as he was of publishers' empty promises and of writers' over-optimism. He taught me to check references when any application looked fishy. His letters to applicants were certainly brisk and occasionally brusque. But when I took over the Fund, I discovered, looking through his files, how thoroughly he had worked every angle to raise money for it. Every idea a trustee suggested—hit the literary agents, hit the publishing corporate foundations, hit the richer members—had already been tried by Murray, and there was a folder about it in the file. In his own contained way, it seemed, Murray had been a man of passion.

—Katharine D. Fishman

The passing of Murray Teigh Bloom is such a loss to those of us who, especially in our beginning years, considered him the beacon, especially when it came to dealing with those in power who did not hesitate to use it in ways that were not to members' advantage. His generosity of spirit and expertise did not go unappreciated by so many of us in ASJA, and he already is sorely missed.

—Tania Grossinger

Murray Bloom was sui generis, a term I don't use lightly, and to which he would have warmed.

Once, Rick Bode and I were at the Blooms' house when Murray began telling us about an ASJA member who wanted to set up and fund a memorial award in his own name. "We've appointed a committee to advise on the best way to do it," Murray intoned. I thought maybe he was being coy. "Is it you?" I asked.

Rick scoffed. "You know it can't be Murray," he said. "Murray wouldn't need a committee."

It was the hardest I ever saw Murray laugh.

Murray had splendid qualities too numerous to list. Self-effacement was not among them. He was confident in an uncertain world, kind in a cruel one, and loving in a way that few men manage.

Having lost my father when I was a young girl, I hungered for the kind of wisdom and solidity that was Murray's gift to so many of us. And he never let me down. I remember once calling him in tears because my cousin, who was my accountant, just didn't get the financial intricacies of my life. Freelancing as a living was simply beyond his expertise. Murray put it all straight in seconds. "It's such an unusual occupation," he said. "It's a waste of time to expect anyone else to understand it."

"The Sayings of Chairman Murray" have sustained many of us through long, difficult times toiling in this most "unusual occupation." One of his most oft-spoken—and oft-quoted—was "The three greatest spoilers of a writing career are drink, marital miseries, and the inability to handle money."

He wore common sense the way other people wear religion. At our writers' conference one year, newly divorced, I was flirting with a handsome, charming fellow ASJA member. From across the room I saw Murray watching me. Gently, but insistently, he shook his head from side to side. Later, I asked, "What was that about?" "The core," Murray replied, "is not stable." In a subsequent year, at the same event, when he saw me with Rick, he nodded, approvingly. Later, he announced "Very sensible."

One of the stories he loved to tell was of his daughter Ellen, now an accomplished lawyer, when she was in first grade. The teacher asked, "What does your daddy do, Ellen?" and she answered, "I don't know, but he types very hard."

Except for typing, Murray made everything look easy. He was successful, yes, but he was human and warm and always, always ready to help.

Among the many gifts of his insight that he gave me was this: "Some people have a natural gyroscope. The gyroscope may get rusty, or knocked askew, but eventually it will right itself. Other people don't have this gyroscope and can only lean on the gyroscope of others. You have a gyroscope."

Through good times and bad, this wisdom from this beloved source, has sustained me and given me confidence. Sometimes, you just need your daddy. Murray was that for a lot of us for a long, long time.

Can there be a more important legacy?

—Bonnie Remsberg

His full name was Murray Teigh Bloom, but I came to refer to him as St. Murray, for his beatific wisdom and generosity. When I first joined the Society of Magazine Writers in New York in 1973, I and others were struck by his gregarious nature, infectious smile, and enthusiasm for writers and writing. He was always a positive force in our meetings at the Algonquin. Soon after, SMW became ASJA and I came home to San Francisco, but would call on St. Murray for advice about contractual issues; he was always ready with a warm welcome and sage counsel, and I could hear his smile over the phone. Those of us who have lived a less than perfect life, and might worry about eventual judgment now have a great advocate in the world to come.

—George Devine