Kathleen E. Woodiwiss

Kathleen E. Woodiwiss

Kathleen E. Woodiwiss (born Kathleen Erin Hogg ) (born June 3, 1939 in Alexandria , Louisiana , † July 6, 2007 in Princeton , Minnesota ) was an American writer. She has been a pioneer of the Bodice Ripper and thus of the modern "romance novel" since her first published novel Where the storm carries us (English original title The Flame and the Flower ) . She was also known through the 1977 bestseller Shanna .

Life

Early years

Kathleen Erin Hogg was the youngest of eight children of Charles Wingrove Hogg, an invalid World War I veteran . As a child, she liked making up stories, and when she was six, she told herself stories to help her fall asleep better. Kathleen's father died suddenly when she was twelve years old; she grew up with her mother and older sisters.

At the age of 16, she met Second Lieutenant Ross Eugene Woodiwiss (1956-1996) of the US Air Force at a dance festival , and they married the following year. Due to his military career, they lived in Japan, where Kathleen Woodiwiss worked part-time as a model for an American agency. After three and a half years in Japan, the family moved to Topeka , Kansas . During those years, Woodowiss began attempting a novel several times, but she kept quitting in frustration due to the slow pace of handwritten writing the novel. After her husband bought her an electric typewriter as a Christmas present, she started working on a novel in earnest.

Career as a writer

Her debut novel Wohin der Sturm uns carries us (English original title: The Flame and the Flower ) was rejected by the agents and hardcover publishers were 600 pages too long. Instead of following the advice of denial and rewriting the novel, Woodiwiss submitted the manuscript to a paperback publisher . The first publisher on their list, Avon , accepted the novel very quickly and initially printed it with a circulation of 500,000 copies. Wherever the storm takes us was revolutionary in that a historical romantic epic described a strong heroine and real sex scenes. The book, published in 1972, sold over 2.3 million copies in the first four years after its publication. The success of this novel sparked a new style of writing romantic romance novels. These mainly focused on the relationship of a helpless heroine rescued by a hero, against a historical background.

Woodiwiss has been an inspiration to numerous modern writers. Julia Quinn remarked : “Woodiwiss made women want to read. She gave them an alternative to Westerns and hard-boiled police procedurals. When I was growing up, I saw my mother and grandmother reading and enjoying romances, and when I was old enough to read them myself, I felt as if I had been admitted into a special sisterhood of reading women. ”Woodiwiss also had a direct influence on the career of the writer LaVyrle Spencer . Shortly after her own first success, she read a manuscript by Spencer. Woodiwiss sent Spencer's manuscript directly to her own editor at Avon. The editor buys the manuscript and Spencer's career began with the novel Fulfilled Luck (Original title: The Fulfillment ).

Woodiwiss published twelve novels, all of which became bestsellers and some were printed over 36 million times. She was known more for the quality than the quantity of her published works. It often took her four or five years to complete a novel. The long pauses between her publications were due to personal and health reasons. So she also had to admit that she suffered from burnout and rediscovered her interest in writing through the breaks.

All of her novels were historical romances with different backgrounds. These included the American Civil War , 18th century England and the Saxons at the time of William the Conqueror . Her heroines were women with “will to live and determination”. Woodiwiss described their stories as “fairy tales. They are an escape for the reader, similar to an Errol Flynn film. "

Later years

Woodiwiss was an avid horsewoman, living at times on a large Minnesota estate . After her husband's death in 1996, she moved back to Louisiana .

She died of cancer in a Princeton hospital at age 68 . She left two sons, Sean and Heath, and numerous grandchildren. A third son, Dorren, had died before her own death.

Her last book Der wilde Ruf des Herzens (English original title: Everlasting ) was published on October 30, 2007.

Books

Publication of the original English edition at Avon Books :

• 1972 - The Flame and the Flower (Birmingham Series # 1; German: Where the storm carries us , Langen-Müller, 1975)
• 1974 - The Wolf and the Dove ( The Wolf and the Dove , Bertelsmann, 1979)
• 1977 - Shanna ( Shanna , Goldmann, 1978)
• 1979 - Ashes in the Wind ( Like Dust in the Wind , 1992)
• 1982 - A Rose in Winter ( Like a Rose in Winter , 1982)
• 1984 - Come Love a Stranger ( Beloved Stranger , 1992)
• 1989 So Worthy My Love ( Tears of Gold , 1989)
• 1992 Forever in Your Embrace ( What the Storm Wind Sows , 1993)
• 1995 - The Kiss (Birmingham series # 2; in the anthology Three Weddings and a Kiss , with Catherine Anderson, Loretta Chase and Lisa Kleypas ; German: A fatal kiss , anthology Drei Weddings and a farewell kiss , 1996)
• 1996 - Beyond the Kiss (Birmingham Series # 3; in the anthology Married at Midnight with Jo Beverley, Tanya Anne Crosby, Samantha James; German: After the Kiss , anthology Wedding Night in Paradise , 1999)
• 1997 - Petals on the River ( As flowers on the river , 1998)
• 1998 - The Elusive Flame (Birmingham Series # 4; On the Waves of Longing )
• 2000 - A Season Beyond a Kiss (Birmingham Series # 5; Like Stars Over the Sea )

Publication of the English original edition at HarperCollins :

• 2003 - The Reluctant Suitor ( The Rose of Cornwall , 2003)
• 2007 - Everlasting ( The Wild Call of the Heart , Blanvalet, 2009)

Web links

• Kathleen Woodiwiss official site
• Kathleen E. Woodiwiss in the database of Find a Grave (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Interview with Kathleen E. Woodiwiss die-buecherecke.de ( Memento of the original from April 6, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved May 28, 2007. 
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Angela Weiss: Interview with Kathleen E. Woodiwiss. (No longer available online.) Bertelsmann Club, October 2000, archived from the original on April 6, 2007 ; Retrieved May 28, 2007 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
3. ↑ boulderweekly.com ( Memento of the original from September 4, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved April 23, 2007. 
4. ^ Kathleenewoodiwiss.com.Retrieved May 28, 2007.
5. ^ Kathleenewoodiwiss.com. Retrieved May 28, 2007.
6. ↑ Kathleen E. Woodiwiss. (No longer available online.) In: Author Biographies. HarperCollins , archived from the original on September 29, 2007 ; Retrieved July 10, 2007 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
7. ↑ Kathleen E. Woodiwiss. Strike Funeral Homes, July 7, 2007, accessed July 9, 2007 .