Richard Selzer

His father was Julius Louis Selzer, a general practitioner who practiced from the ground floor of the family home at Fifth Avenue in Troy.

The surviving members of his family included his wife of 61 years, Janet White Selzer, and their three children: sons Jonathan (Regine) and Larry (Rossi), and daughter Gretchen (Donna); as well as seven grandchildren: Becky, Hank, Emily, Lucy, Ned, Danny, and Ellie.

[1] Among his published books are: In 2010, The Abaton, a medical humanities literary and arts journal produced by Des Moines University, awarded the inaugural Selzer Prize for Writing.

Selzer wrote a 1976 Esquire essay, "What I Saw at the Abortion"; he drew readers into the fetus’ consciousness, which sparked fiery and divergent reactions.

His engagement with public issues continued in the 1990 Redbook story, "Follow Your Heart," showing how organ transplants can tear one family apart and heal another, emotionally and spiritually.

Selzer's exploration into the question of autonomy over the body continues to resonate in our culture today, with his literature bringing richer shades of truth than the political discourse allows.

[6] He mentored aspiring writers, such as Erich Segal and John Irving, and held a medical student writing workshop at Yale from the early 1980s until 2011, when Lorence Gutterman took over.

Playwright David Rabe adapted Selzer's "A Question of Mercy" into a 1998 play performed at the Long Wharf Theater in New Haven, CT.[7] Selzer became an art critic, lecturing on "The Ivory Crucifixion," "Rothko's #3 Red," and The Veteran and St. Peter, first at Yale Art Gallery and then in 1998 at The Cooper Union School of Architecture in New York.

In 2011 "Diary of an Infidel," a semiautobiographical story about Selzer's time at San Giorgio monastery, across the lagoon from Venice, became a staged reading scripted by Ed Lynch and performed at the Yale Art Gallery.

But my work, written decades ago, is used in some anthology or collection, and I have discovered that things I say are counted on by some people today" (Selzer to Stripling).