Malcolm Margolin (October 27, 1940 – August 20, 2025) was an American author, publisher and the onetime 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 (California ICAN) to continue and expand upon the work that he began more than forty years ago.

Margolin was the author and 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 an American father in a Jewish family. He attended Boston Latin School He met his wife Rina while attending Harvard; she was a psychology major at Radcliffe College.

Bibliography

Books authored by Margolin include:

  • Margolin, Malcolm; Linsteadt, Sylvia. Wonderments of the East Bay. Berkeley: Heyday. 2014. .
  • Bancroft, Kim. The Heyday of Malcolm Margolin: The Damn Good Times of a Fiercely Independent Publisher. Berkeley: Heyday. 2014. .
  • La Perouse, Jean-Francois de Galaup; Edited, introduced, with extensive commentary by Malcolm Margolin. Life in a California Mission: Monterey in 1786. Berkeley: Heyday. 1989. .
  • Margolin, Malcolm. Deep Hanging Out: Wanderings and Wonderment in Native California. Berkeley: Heyday. 2021. .

Awards

Margolin received many honors including a Lifetime Achievement Award from the San Francisco Bay Area Book Reviewers Association, a Community Leadership Award from the San Francisco Foundation, a Gold Medal from the Commonwealth Club of California, an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation, and a Cultural Freedom Award from the Lannan Foundation.

In 2012 he received the chairman's Commendation from the National Endowment for the Humanities,

  • Award for Organizational Excellence, American Association of State and Local History
  • California Council for the Promotion of History Award
  • California Indian Health Services Award
  • "California State Assembly Resolution" honoring Heyday
  • Carey McWilliams Award for Lifetime Achievement, California Studies Association
  • Chairman's Commendation, National Endowment for the Humanities
  • The Hubert Howe Bancroft Award, The Bancroft Library
  • Martin Baumhoff Award for Achievement by the Society for California Archaeology
  • The Oscar Lewis Award for Contributions to Western History, Book Club of California
  • Presidential Commendation, The Society for California Archaeology
  • Publishing Award, California Horticultural Society
  • Special recognition for leadership in the arts, California Arts Council

References

  • California ICAN (http://www.californiaican.org)