The Munster Literature Centre regrets to report the death of David Marcus. Marcus aged 85 was tireless in his promotion of the short story ever since his founding of Irish Writing in Cork in the 1940s. He edited numerous anthologies of both poetry and stories and most contemporary Irish writers can boast that they were first published in his New Irish Writing page in the Irish Press daily newspaper.  In the late 70s he was a co-founder of Poolbeg press with the specific aim of publishing collections of stories. Poolbeg published new collections by the likes of Val Mulkerns and Gillman Noonan as well as re-issuing collections by classic authors such as Elizabeth Bowen, John Montague and Frank O'Connor. Marcus published a several novels of his own as well as a collection of stories entitled Whoever Heard of an Irish Jew? Among the anthology series he edited were the Phoenix series of new Irish short stories and selections from Faber. David Marcus was the inaugural judge of the Sean O'Faolain Short Story Prize. In so far as no one other person can ever again have an individual relationship with practcally all the writers of the nation, it is truly the end of an era.