Kathleen E. Woodiwiss

Kathleen E. Woodiwiss (born Kathleen Erin Hogg, June 3, 1939 – July 6, 2007) was an American novelist. She pioneered the historical romance genre with the 1972 publication of her novel The Flame and the Flower.

Early life She was born Kathleen Erin Hogg in Alexandria, Louisiana, the youngest of eight children of Charles Wingrove Hogg, a disabled World War I veteran, and his wife, Gladys, née Coker. Her father died suddenly when Woodiwiss was only 12, leaving her to be raised by her mother and older sisters. Woodiwiss would later remark that, "every single one of us had minds of our own even then; I was no exception. I suppose that carried over into my creations of heroines who weren't weak-willed." The success of this novel prompted a new style of writing romance, concentrating primarily on historical fiction tracking the monogamous relationships between helpless heroines and the heroes who rescued them, even if they had been the ones to place them in danger. The romance novels which followed in her example featured longer plots, more controversial situations and characters, and more intimate and steamy sex scenes.

Woodiwiss had a direct impact on the career of fellow novelist LaVyrle Spencer. Soon after finding her own success, Woodiwiss read a manuscript written by Spencer, who had yet to earn a publishing contract. Woodiwiss promptly mailed Spencer's novel to her own editor at Avon. The editor purchased the novel, The Fulfillment, beginning Spencer's career. In addition, many modern romance novelists cite Woodiwiss as their inspiration. Julia Quinn remarked that "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 published twelve best-selling romance novels, with over thirty-six million copies in print.

Later life Woodiwiss was an avid equestrienne who at one time lived in a large house on in Minnesota. After her husband's death in 1996, she moved back to Louisiana. She died in a hospital in Princeton, Minnesota, aged 68, from cancer.

She was survived by two sons, Sean and Heath, their wives, and numerous grandchildren. A third son, Dorren, predeceased her. Her final book, Everlasting, was released on October 30, 2007.

Reception Laura Kinsale in her essay "The Androgynous Reader" in Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women cites the heroine of Shanna as proof that the average romance reader is not identifying with the heroine, but rather as a placeholder for themselves to be with the hero, for a "sillier and more wrongheaded heroine than Shanna would be difficult to imagine...Feminists need not tremble for the reader--she does not identify with, admire, or internalize the characteristics of either a stupidly submissive or an irksomely independent heroine. The reader thinks about what she would have done in the heroine's place."

Selected works

Birmingham Family Saga series The Flame and the Flower, 1972 "The Kiss" in THREE WEDDINGS AND A KISS, 1995 (with Catherine Anderson, Loretta Chase, Lisa Kleypas) "Beyond the Kiss" in MARRIED AT MIDNIGHT, 1996 (with Jo Beverley, Tanya Anne Crosby, Samantha James) The Elusive Flame, 1998 A Season Beyond a Kiss, 2000

Single novels Wolf and the Dove, 1974 Shanna, 1977 Ashes in the Wind, 1979 A Rose in Winter, 1981 Come Love a Stranger, 1984 So Worthy My Love, 1989 Forever in Your Embrace, 1992 Petals on the River, 1997 The Reluctant Suitor, 2002 Everlasting, 2007