Marek's career in the publishing business began with his positions as an editor at
McCall's magazine and his work at
Macmillan publishing starting in 1962. In 1968, he signed the "
Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War. Over the course of his career, Marek was also employed at companies like
World Publishing, and
Dial Press. Marek ran his own publishing imprint, Richard Marek Books, at
Putnam Publishing Group from 1977 to 1981. In 1985, Marek began serving as the president of
E. P. Dutton. As Marek remarked in an online profile, he has been responsible for editing "well over 300 books". Marek's first major piece of writing,
Works of Genius (1987), was a novel that dealt with the inner workings of the publishing industry. The novel received praise from several major publications such as
The Washington Post and
The Los Angeles Times Book Review. Marek's second writing,
Here is my Hope: A Book of Healing and Prayer: Inspirational Stories of the Johns Hopkins Hospital, was co-written with Randi Henderson and was published in 2001. He died of
esophageal cancer on March 25, 2020, at the age of 86. ==References==