Byron preiss biography

Entry updated 5 August Tagged: Author, Editor.

() US book packager, anthologist and co-author of two sf/fantasy novels – Guts () with C J Henderson and Dragonworld () with J Michael Reaves – and The Bat Family ( chap; vt The Vampire State Building), a juvenile. Though he has also edited and co-edited numerous Anthologies, Preiss is best known as the most successful of the independent sf book packagers (i.e., creative middlemen who conceive projects, pitch them to publishers, commission writers, artists and others to produce the required material, etc.), founding Byron Preiss Visual Publications Inc (frequently abbreviated to BPVP) in The company's first project was the Weird Heroes anthology series – Preiss himself edited Weird Heroes #1 (anth ), Weird Heroes #2 (anth ), Weird Heroes #6 (anth ) and Weird Heroes #8 (anth ) – which early demonstrated Preiss's interest in visual presentation. Among the early BPVP projects were a number of Graphic Novels: adaptations included a version written by Preiss of Alfred Bester's Tiger! Tiger! (October January Galaxy as "The Stars My Destination"; ; rev vt The Stars My Destination; rev ) published first partially as The Stars My Destination: The Graphic Story Adaptation: Volume One (graph ) and later in full as The Stars My Destination: The Graphic Story Adaptation (graph ), both volumes illustrated by Howard Chaykin (the expected Volume Two never appeared as a separate work); original works included Samuel R Delany's Empire (graph ) with Chaykin. In the s, BPVP branched out into many different areas, from children's and Young-Adult books to art books, nature books and other projects.

But most of the company's attention remained on the sf field, and BVPB was one of the forces behind the huge growth during that decade of Shared-World texts tied either to the work of well known authors or generated by BVPB itself, and almost always written on a

(Byron Cary Preiss)

OBITUARY NOTICE—See index for SATA sketch: Born c. , in New York, NY; died in a car accident July 9, , in East Hampton, NY. Publisher and author. A pioneer in the area of digital publishing, Preiss was president of Byron Preiss Visual Publications and Ibooks, as well as an author of children's and adult books. With an early interest in education, he was an editor and writer for the television program Electric Company from to , as well as an elementary school teacher in Pennsylvania. Graduating from the University of Pennsylvania in , he completed a master's degree in communications at Stanford University in From there, he was hired as head writer for American Broadcasting Company television in San Francisco, worked as a movie writer and director during the mids, and was an editor for publisher Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich from to Preiss then founded his own publishing house and quickly became a leader in publishing biographies, as well as books in other media besides print. His release of the audiobook The Words of Gandhi earned a Grammy award. Preiss, who enjoyed science fiction, fantasy, and mystery books, also became interested in graphic novels and later focused on digital publications, releasing books on CD-ROM and as e-books. An accomplished writer himself, he wrote lighthearted juvenile titles such as The Silent "E's" from Outer Space () and The First Crazy Word Book: Verbs ), and authored genre fiction, such as the science-fiction novel Starfawn () and the fantasy Dragonworld (), the latter which he coauthored with Michael Reaves.

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Early life and career

Publishing career