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May 31, 2023 (San Diego) – A memorial service has been scheduled for renowned author and radio host Charles Harrington Elster, who died March 1, 2023 of cancer at his home in Kensington. The memorial will be held on Saturday, July 15 at 2 p.m. at the Kensington Community Church, 4773 Marlborough Drive, San Diego.
Best known as the original co-host of “A Way With Words” on KPBS from 1998 to 2004, Elster was a passionate logophile, or lover of words. The show’s founding cohost, Richard Lederer, remembers Elster as “a real communicator with a great voice.”
Elster also authored a dozen books on pronunciation, vocabulary and style, starting with There is No Zoo in Zoology and Is There a Cow in Moscow?” He penned high school vocabulary-building novels Tooth and Nail: A Novel Approach to the SAT and Test of Time: A Novel Approach to the SAT and ACT. His last book, How to Tell Fate from Destiny and Other Skillful Word Distinctions, came out in 2018.
Born July 14, 1957 in Queens, New York, Elster was the only child of Reinhardt Elster, principal harpist for the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, and wife Nancy, a piano teacher. He developed a love of words inspired by his mother, a” “word buff,” and his fathe. Both parents encouraged him to read from an early age and he soon began collecting dictionaries.
He obtained a bachelor’s degree in American Studies from Yale University, married and soon after moved to San Diego County, his wife’s hometown. They bought a home in the Kensington community, where Elster converted a former chicken coop into a backyard home office. Early on, he worked on a vocabulary building program for Kaypro computer company before launching his career as a radio personality and author.
“I got very involved in words, doing that job,” he said. That brought him to host “A Word to the Wise” rant on language on KPBS,which in turn introduced him to the Writer’s Haven bookstore in Normal Heights, which led to teaching a workshop and a contract for his first book.
For many years, Elster conducted a critique group for aspiring authors, including Miriam Raftery, now editor of East County Magazine. “Charlie was an inspiration for me and many others, providing valuable mentoring and friendship along our journey to publication," she recalls, adding that Elster’s guidance helped her and other critique group members become published authors.
“I like to think that when I led that workshop, I was trying to make it the most democratic environment as possible,” he recalled in a 2016 interview with East County Magazine Show’s Bookshelf segment. “It was very important to me as the leader to make sure that it was very fair and equitable, and that everybody felt encouraged, no matter what they chose to write,” noting that the group included a broad range of fiction and nonfiction. But he admitted, “I’m a very lonely and individualistic kind of writer, and I don’t even show my work to anybody else before it goes to my editor.”
Elster also provided voice talent as narrator of books on tape and educational materials. In addition, he served as a consultant for Garner's Modern English Usage and he was the pronunciation editor of Black's Law Dictionary. His articles appeared in the Boston Globe, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, San Diego Union-Tribune, Copyediting, Verbatim, and other publications.
He is survived by his wife, Myrna Zambrano, and their two children, Carmen Elster of Oakland, CA and Judith Elster of Manhattan, NY.
Read highlights of our interview with Charles Harrington Elster in 2016.
Listen to our full interview, which originally aired on KNSJ 89.1 FM Radio.
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