Remembering Kate Duffy

The Women of Mystery would like to express their sorrow over the loss of romance editor extraordinaire Kate Duffy. Kate passed away from cancer this past Sunday.

I worked with Kate for four years at Kensington Publishing. My first day there, I knew she was a force to be reckoned with. Since I was a health editor with little knowledge of the romance genre, I didn't yet realize how much of a force she was in the industry. All I knew that first day was that she was frighteningly intelligent, highly respected, and extremely sharp witted (and tongued).

Anyone who thinks romance editors walk around with their heads in the clouds, mooning over the male models smiling down from the book covers lining their office walls, wearing chiffon and lace and four-inch heels, and signing their names in flowery script with little hearts in place of the dots over the i's and j's, didn't know Kate Duffy. Kate was a skilled fiction editor who was adept at finding bright new voices and nurturing them along. She also firmly understood the business side of trade book publishing, and she was a whiz at negotiating contracts. The authors she first published or worked with include some of the genre's best known writers, such as Jude Deveraux, Julie Garwood, Lori Foster, Heather Graham, Judith McNaught, Mary Jane Davidson, Jacqueline Frank, and Mary Jo Putney.

A graduate of Trinity College and George Washington University, Kate also attended Oxford University. She began her career at Paddington Press in London. In the United States, she worked at Popular Library; Dell; Simon & Schuster, where she was the founding editor of Silhouette Books and later an editor with Pocket Books; and Harlequin, where she founded the Worldwide Library imprint. At Kensington, she established Brava Books, which broke new ground at the time with its risque storylines and descriptions.

Honored with numerous awards from national and regional writers' organizations, Kate was the first recipient of the RWA's "Industry Award," in 1991. Recently, RT Book Reviews magazine announced that she would be the 2010 recipient of its annual Melinda Helfer Award, presented for outstanding support of and contributions to the genre.

Image courtesy of Shane Gericke.