lit a candle 1d agoI keep trying to think when I first saw him, and I believe it was one of those nights flipping channels in the late seventies, my father had WNEW on, and there was Offit against Abend going back and forth on something, I don't even remember what the topic was now, only that it felt like watching two people actually think instead of perform. Point and counterpoint, that whole format, and everyone forgets he was half of where it started before Crossfire and before Saturday Night Live did their bit on it. Ninety seven years old. I suppose what strikes me, editing this thought as I go, is that the debates were only ten years of a very long life, and somehow the ones I remember best are a decade out of ninety seven, which seems to say something about television, or maybe just about memory.
Their story
Sidney Offit (October 13, 1928 to October 3, 2026) was an American author, editor, writing teacher and television commentator who spent more than half a century at the center of New York's literary life. He wrote two novels, two memoirs and a dozen books for young readers, curated the George…
Sidney Offit (October 13, 1928 to October 3, 2026) was an American author, editor, writing teacher and television commentator who spent more than half a century at the center of New York's literary life. He wrote two novels, two memoirs and a dozen books for young readers, curated the George Polk Awards in Journalism for more than three decades, and was the man Kurt Vonnegut called his "official best friend." He died in New York City on October 3, 2026, at the age of 97.
Offit was born in Baltimore, Maryland, to Lilian (née Cohen) and Barney Offit. His family was Jewish, and his father, whose family had come to the United States from the Russian Empire, made his living as a bookmaker. That colorful, complicated relationship later became the subject of his best known book. Offit graduated from Valley Forge Military Academy in 1946 and went on to Johns Hopkins University, where Russell Baker recruited him to write for The Johns Hopkins News-Letter. He became the paper's managing editor and graduated in 1950 with a B.A. in English literature. He also served in the US Army Reserve as an intelligence and transportation officer.
Moving to New York, he began as an editorial assistant at Mercury Publications and McFadden Publishers. In 1955 he became a contributing editor at Baseball Magazine, where he interviewed greats of the game from Ted Williams to Jackie Robinson, and in 1956 he assembled The Best of Baseball. Summers spent at the Aladdin, the Catskills hotel owned by his in-laws, inspired his first novel, He Had It Made (1959), which earned him an appearance on Jack Paar's Tonight show. A second novel, The Other Side of the Street, followed in 1962.
He found his widest audience writing for young readers. Through the 1960s and early 1970s he published books such as Soupbone, Cadet Attack, Cadet Quarterback, The Adventures of Homer Fink and The Boy Who Made a Million, illustrated by artists including Peter Burchard, Paul Galdone and Mercer Mayer. At the same time he began teaching fiction writing at New York University and The New School, where he taught well into his eighties and won a following of students who went on to publish their own books.
In 1972 he was appointed curator of the George Polk Awards in Journalism at Long Island University, a role he held until 2009, when he was succeeded by John Darnton. From 1975 to 1985 he was also a familiar face on New York television. As "Professor Offit," he represented the liberal viewpoint in nightly debates with the conservative commentator Martin Abend on the WNEW-TV Ten O'Clock News. Critic Marvin Kitman wrote that he lasted ten years and 1,000 debates, and the sparring was said to have helped inspire CNN's Crossfire and Saturday Night Live's "Point/Counterpoint." The debates were briefly revived on Channel 11 in 1992.
Offit devoted much of his life to authors' rights. He served on the board of PEN American Center and as its vice president, was a founder and president of the Authors Guild Foundation, and served as president of the Century Association. After nearly two decades away from long-form writing, he returned with Memoir of the Bookie's Son (1995), a loving portrait of his father that The New Yorker recommended. A second memoir, Friends, Writers, and Other Countrymen (2008), recalled encounters with H. L. Mencken, Robert Frost, Che Guevara, Truman Capote and many others.
His friendship with Kurt Vonnegut began around 1970, when publisher Roger Straus introduced them at a PEN seminar. The two played tennis and marathon Ping-Pong, went to movies and ballgames, and Vonnegut placed him at the clambake in Timequake. After Vonnegut's death in 2007, Offit wrote the foreword to Look at the Birdie and edited the Library of America's Kurt Vonnegut: Novels and Stories 1963 to 1973. He also appeared in the 2021 documentary Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time.
In the early 1950s he married Avodah Komito, who became a psychiatrist, author and noted sex therapist. They were married for more than 60 years until her death in 2015, and in 2016 his reflections on love and loss for Humans of New York were shared widely. He is survived by his sons, Kenneth and Michael, five grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren. A funeral service is scheduled at Riverside Memorial Chapel in Manhattan on October 6, 2026.
Biography adapted from Wikipedia; The New York Times paid notice via Legacy.com (Oct 2026); Dignity Memorial / Riverside Memorial Chapel; Johns Hopkins Magazine (2012); Library of America Reader's Almanac (2011); PEN Americ.
In their own words
“One of the subtle aspects of Kurt that not everybody picked up was the fact that he emerged from that traumatizing bombing with the capacity to write and express himself. That's a real tribute to character.”
On Kurt Vonnegut, Johns Hopkins Magazine, 2012
“I think it's not an exaggeration to say that when Kurt Vonnegut submitted a work, it was done.”
On Vonnegut's craft, Johns Hopkins Magazine, 2012
“We met so many years ago, all I can remember is that soon after we met we were playing tennis together. We just struck it off as friends.”
On meeting Vonnegut, Johns Hopkins Magazine, 2012
“Kurt was one, Herman Hesse was the other.”
On the two writers young people read 'as scripture' in the early 1970s, Library of America interview, 2011
“The definition of love is elusive, which is why we write about it endlessly. Even Shakespeare couldn't touch it.”
Humans of New York, 2016
“My wife used to say: 'We are one.' And believe me, she was not the type of person to overstate something. Now that she's gone, I realize how right she was.”
On his late wife Avodah, Humans of New York, 2016
From social media
1Posts by Sidney, and posts about them, kept here so they are not lost.