Michael Durand died last week at the age of 70, leaving behind two neighborhood papers, and a legacy of many writers — including this one. Through those papers — the Richmond Review and the Sunset Beacon — he gave many of us a first chance to see our names in print, and to be paid for it.
When I first met Durand in 2024, he was sitting inside One Richmond, a nonprofit on Clement Street, near a sign that said “Meet the editor of the Richmond Review.”
He and I got to talking. I timidly offered what services I thought he might need — I had a camera, I said. Maybe I could go out and shoot some photos for him.
“You’re a writer,” he said. “You should write something.”
I hadn’t said that I was a writer. It took me a second to remember that in our small talk I told him I had studied English.
Durand started counting, out loud, the days until the next issue went to print, figuring out what the deadline of what my first draft would be.
“Is there a story?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said, smiling. “This place.” He introduced me to One Richmond’s director and told me to interview her. There I had it: my first assignment.
Born on Long Island, Durand got a little experience writing for his college newspaper, at SUNY Stony Brook, where he was studying to be an English teacher, before leaving in his final year. “I literally graduated myself,” he recounted in an episode of the Outside Lands podcast. “I stood up in the middle of a class and I go, ‘You’re done. You’re good.’ I never went back.”
He moved to San Francisco in 1978, after visiting a friend and falling in love with the city, and worked his way up from temp jobs to his own event planning business. He started writing again later in life, around 2014, contributing to the neighborhood papers, which were then under the editorship of their founder Paul Kozakiewicz. A couple years later, Kozakiewicz announced that he was looking to retire soon.
“The paper never went on the market,” Kozakiewicz said. Durand bought him out in 2019, when they were both 63.
Durand took to the business quickly, and developed his own vision for the papers that at times strayed from Kozakiewicz’s, who stayed on as an editor.
“We got along great,” Kozakiewicz said. “There were times we disagreed, and he knew he was the boss and his decision was the decision, and I respected that, too.”
Durand brought as many writers as he could into the fold, loved long articles on culture and dropped the roundup and calendar sections Kozakiewicz had developed.
But there was still plenty of hard news to cover. Durand’s watch was marked by a succession of controversies out in the avenues: When he took over, a debate raged over New Deal-era frescos at Washington High School showing slavery and settler violence against Native Americans. Then, in Golden Gate park, the closure of John F. Kennedy Drive to cars pitted neighbor against neighbor, only to be surpassed by the furor over the more recent closure of the Great Highway, and the rezoning of both neighborhoods in the mayor’s upzoning plan.
Durand (with the help of Kozakiewicz and news writer Thomas Pendergast) oversaw the papers through it all, and he brought the publications online and carried them through the pandemic.
He also dedicated more than a substantial portion of the paper to feature stories about the culture of the neighborhoods — he gave me free rein to write about everything from baseball players in Golden Gate Park who followed 19th-century rules and style of dress, to the scene at the Balboa Theater the night that David Lynch died.
“We like to highlight small businesses and artists — the best of our community,” Durand said in a video promoting the papers.
He also, quietly, advertised his own artistic sideline. In one month’s “announcements” section, an open call for photo submissions to the editor sits directly above an advertisement for piano lessons.
“With my unique teaching method, I will show you how to find every chord on the keyboard,” the ad began. “Call Michael,” it went on, and listed the same phone number as the editor’s above.
Durand is survived by his siblings and their families. After he was diagnosed last month with metastatic melanoma, he forewent treatment and entered hospice, with the help of a GoFundMe campaign that raised over 30,000 dollars for care in his final days.
The papers will go on. He sold them to Megan Robertson, the former features editor. She and Kozakiewicz will continue to edit and publish. The Sunset Beacon went to print on Tuesday, with Durand’s obituary.
Durand was entrenched in his community, but he was a no less principled editor behind the scenes. He liked to tell people that he was a Libra, and so he had an eye for balance. When I reported on a memorial held at a local diner for a cook who worked there, I asked if I could add some words at the end — maybe in italics, you know, to say that I knew the guy?
Durand vetoed the idea. He didn’t want reporters included in their own stories.
Fair enough.
