Nancy Anderson Chirich

Nancy Anderson Chirich — writer, editor, publisher, environmental advocate, adventurer and excellent cook — went to rest after a life well lived on January 13th, 2015 in Berkeley, California. She was 91.

Nancy grew up in San Francisco, finishing Pacific Heights Grammar School in 1936 and graduating from Lowell High School in 1940. She graduated from UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism in 1947 and followed her thirst for journalistic discovery to Europe soon after. Through the 1950s, she was employed by the American Embassy, on primary assignment for the United States Information Service (USIS) as photographer and journalist, stationed in Belgrade, Serbia and throughout Italy, working with Ambassador Clare Boothe Luce.

It was while based in Belgrade in 1952, that she met her husband Velja Aleksandar Radulovic Ciric, an Olympic canoeing and kayaking judge and engineer. Enamored with the culture of former Yugoslavia, she immersed herself in all aspects of life there until the 1960s, when she couple moved to the Bay Area to raise their daughter. They relocated to Charleston, SC in the 1970s where Nancy explored Southern culture, co-produced an award winning radio broadcast entitled “The Hucksters of old Charleston” and authored cookbooks on local cuisine — while active in environmental efforts to protect wildlife habitats such as Kiawah Island from development.

Ms. Chirich returned to the Bay Area in the early 1980s, where she authored Life With Wine, a collection of interviews of Napa and Sonoma Valley vintners. In 1987, she founded and operated mystery novel publishing company Cliffhanger Press, which gained recognition and acclaim as an independent press with a catalog of Edgar-nominated authors.

Ms. Chirich was born in Winslow, Arizona to Helma Sholund Anderson, a legal secretary and daughter of a Swedish pioneer and Rollin J. Anderson, an agricultural visionary who left San Francisco in the 1950s for Utah, to discover a mineral compound used for replenishing soils, which he called AZOMITE.

She is survived by her daughter, Mila Radulovic Ciric of New York City, her brother Rollin R. Anderson of San Francisco, nieces, nephews and loved ones. Her ashes will be scattered in the Pacific Ocean along the Half Moon Bay coastline, in celebration of her life, amongst family and friends on the anniversary of her death.

Appreciated contributions may be made in Nancy Chirich’s memory to her favorite local public radio station KALW, to honor her affinity for fine journalism.