Ressner, Phil 1922–2005

(Philip Ressner)

OBITUARY NOTICE—See index for CA sketch: Born October 29, 1922, in New York, NY; died of heart failure, December 27, 2005, in New York, NY. Editor and author. Ressner worked as an editor for journals and publishers while producing a series of children's books. He was attending the University of Wyoming when he enlisted in the army to fight during World War II. Afterwards, he studied at New York University, where he earned a B.A. in 1956 while working as a motorman for the Transit Authority. Ressner then was employed as an assistant editor for the Journal of the American Water Works Association for a year and as an associate editor for the New York Academy of Sciences for another year. He joined the staff at the publishing house Harper & Row in 1959. Starting as an assistant, he became an editor, but left Harper in 1967 to work for Harcourt Brace Jovanonich from 1967 to 1981. In the 1960s, Ressner began releasing his own original fiction for children, beginning with August Explains (1963) and continuing on with such works as Dudley Pippin (1965), The Park in the City (1971), Jerome (1972), and Dudley Pippin's Summer (1987). Ressner spent 1982 through 1985 as an editor for Scientific American Books; interestingly, he returned to his early job roots in 1986 to work as a writer and editor for the Metro Transit Authority's Metro-North commuter rail line in New York City. Here he produced the newsletter Mileposts until he retired in 1997.

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

New York Times, January 17, 2006, p. A20.