Tom was born Sept. 2, 1947, and died Oct. 22, 2020, in Brooklyn, N.Y., after a long struggle with cancer. 

During his undergraduate years at Harvard, Tom was president of The Harvard Lampoon. At Princeton he earned a Ph.D. in English, specializing in renaissance literature. 

Tom published six novels and a collection of stories while teaching English to a generation of students at the St. Hilda’s and St. Hugh’s School and Horace Mann School. His novel The Crimson Bears/A Hundred Doors was translated into German and published in a series that contained only three other authors: JRR Tolkien, Mervyn Peake, and Peter S. Beagle. With his wife, Wendy Walker, he founded the Writhing Society, a salon devoted to exploring diverse writing practices, and Proteotypes, a press associated with the Brooklyn gallery Proteus Gowanus. 

In the last years of his life Tom worked tirelessly to save a community garden from deed thieves. The Maple Street Community Garden will soon become a branch of the New York City parks. 

Tom is survived by his wife, Wendy; and son Paul. 

Graduate alumni memorials are prepared by the APGA.