Barry N. Malzberg graduated from Syracuse University in 1960, and worked for the New York City Department of Welfare and the New York State Department of Mental Health.

 

In 1964, he returned to Syracuse University for graduate study in creative writing. Although he was awarded a Schubert Foundation Playwriting Fellowship (1964-1965) and the Cornelia Ward Creative Writing Fellowship (1965), he was unable to sell his work to any of the literary magazines of the era. Resolving not to be an "unpublished assistant professor of English," he left the program in 1965 to pursue a career as a freelance writer and agent for the Scott Meredith Literary Agency.

 

His first published story appeared under a pseudonym in the men's magazine Wildcat. His first science fiction story ("We're Coming Through the Window") was published in the August 1967 issue of Galaxy. He found commercial and critical success with publication of his surreal novelette "Final War" in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1968.

 

He was an editor at Escapade, a men's magazine, in early 1968, and then edited Amazing Stories and Fantastic.

 

His work has been nominated for five Hugo Awards, six Nebulas, the Philip K. Dick Award, and the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award. His 1973 novel Beyond Apollo won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award.