Richard Jackson, publisher of Judy Blume, dead at 84
NEW YORK — The publisher of acclaimed children’s books by Judy Blume, Paula Fox and others has died. Richard Jackson was 84.
Simon & Schuster’s Children’s Publishing announced Monday that Jackson died Oct. 2. Additional details were not immediately available. Jackson was editorial director of Richard Jackson Books at Simon & Schuster.
Jackson’s career dated back to the 1960s, when he co-founded Bradbury Press. He would soon help transform children’s publishing by releasing Blume’s candid classic “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret,” a book both acclaimed and censored over the following decades. He also published such prize winners as Fox’s “The Slave Dancer” and Susan Patron’s “The Higher Power of Lucky.”
Jackson himself became a children’s author. His books included “In Plain Sight” and “Puddle.” He almost died. He’s a little happy with life right now,” Smith said.
The resulting movie, in theaters this week, is a sometimes silly but heartfelt examination of nostalgia and growing up. Co-starring longtime friend Jason Mewes (the Jay in the titular duo), it’s packed with meta references to other films and to what Smith calls his own “myopic career.”
The New Jersey native has been podcasting for 12 years. He’s written comic books and he’s toured with performances that mix jokes and his unique brand of verbose opinion and hyper-selfaware, hyper-detailed storytelling. He acknowledges he was a more driven filmmaker — and perhaps sharper writer — at the start of his career, when he made “Clerks” in 1994 and “Mallrats” the next year.
Famously made on a shoestring
$27,000 budget, “Clerks” debuted to acclaim in 1994 at the Sundance Film Festival. It’s a profane, grungy, black-and-white slice-of-life film centered on a New Jersey convenience store that served as a showcase for Smith’s brand of eloquently ribald dialogue. Smith, a Hollywood outsider who played stoner Silent Bob in the film, moved quickly to build his own Gen X slacker franchise of sorts.
“Sometimes I got to face Kevin Smith from the past — who was much more creative and prolific or all the good things. He was the new guy and stuff. I don’t mind that. I love Kevin Smith from the past. … That’s the guy that started the journey. I continue it,” Smith said. “So far, it feels like I’m honoring the journey that I started.”