Literary obituaries: Week of January 29, 2024

Fussy’s content-posting staff took an unexpected couple of days off, and wow did the literary obituaries pile up in that time.

Here are the wordsmiths we've lost, all of whom are profiled in The New York Times; other outlets' obituaries are provided when available.

• N. Scott Momaday: This Pulitzer prize-winning storyteller, poet, educator, and folklorist is credited with launching contemporary Native American literature via his debut novel, House Made of Dawn. (NYT, Associated Press, Book Riot, Washington Post)

• Marc Jaffe: The longtime editor's career coincided with the rise in paperback novel sales, and he was involved in publishing such hits as The Exorcist, The Catcher in the Rye, and Jaws. (NYT, Publishers Weekly)

• Jon Franklin: The author, teacher, reporter, and editor won the first Pulitzer Prizes awarded for feature writing and explanatory journalism; he released his own work as dramatic nonfiction as well as the definitive guide to writing in that way. (NYT, Washington Post, Nieman Storyboard)

• David J. Skal: This historian of horror entertainment wrote about the genre's deeper meaning and alignment with the cultural fears and issues of the day, serving as an "evangelist for horror." (NYT, Shelf Awareness, Hollywood Gothique)

• Letha Dawson Scanzoni: The evangelical Christian wrote persuasively and prolifically about how the Bible actually considered women equal to men (NYT)