Sylvan Karchmer: Jewish Playwright and Short Story Writer (1911–1991)
By: Lisa C. Maxwell
Published: September 8, 2025
Updated: September 8, 2025
Sylvan Nathan Karchmer, Jewish playwright and short story writer, was born in Dallas on December 31, 1914, to Jewish immigrants Eli and Rose (Jacobs) Karchmer. He had five siblings, Jeanette May, Alfred Jerome, Jean Herschel, Joyce, and Beverly. For ten years after he graduated from Forest Avenue High School in 1930, he worked as a clerk for an oil company. During World War II he was in active service in North Africa and Italy. In the words of writer William W. Peery, “What he saw there made it impossible for Karchmer to return to stamping ‘O.K. to Pay’ on invoices.” Instead, he went to college. At the University of Texas he received his bachelor of fine arts degree in 1949 and his master of fine arts degree in 1950. His master’s thesis was the writing and production of a full-length play. After graduation he was an instructor and later professor of creative writing at the University of Oregon, though he kept Dallas as his permanent address. In 1968 he became a professor of creative writing at the University of Houston. He was also a writer in residence at Viterbo College in Wisconsin. For several summers he taught a playwriting workshop at the Banff Centre in Canada.
During his career Karchmer had a number of short stories published in various journals and short story collections, including Southwest Review, various Jewish publications, and a volume of The Best American Short Stories. He sometimes wrote under the pen name Lee Brian. Sylvan Karchmer died at the age of seventy-nine on June 24, 1991, in Houston. He was buried there at Emanu El Memorial Park. The University of Houston established the Sylvan Karchmer Prize in Fiction in his honor.
Bibliography:
Sylvan Karchmer Papers, University of Houston, M. D. Anderson Library, Special Collections. William Peery, ed., 21 Texas Short Stories (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1954).
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The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this entry.
Lisa C. Maxwell, “Karchmer, Sylvan Nathan,” Handbook of Texas Online, accessed March 09, 2026, https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/karchmer-sylvan-nathan.
Published by the Texas State Historical Association.
TID:
FKA14
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- September 8, 2025
- September 8, 2025
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