Kate Duffy, 1953-2009
My first editor Kate Duffy died a few months ago. I had been out of touch with her for a long time. But what a huge event in my life she had been! Kate Duffy gave me my first break, and here’s the story:
Once upon a time, I was a budding fiction writer at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, but by 1976 that seemed like a dim memory. I had recently married, after 5 or 6 years of steady work as a musician around the Boston area and on the road. But I was leaving that life behind. A circle had closed and I wanted again to be a writer. But music–musicians, guitars, roadies, clubs, concerts–had become the world I knew best. What to do?
I decided to write a nonfiction book about what I knew, a kind of how-to manual for bands. But getting a publisher interested–”musicians don’t read anything but Guitar Player, do they”–was quite another matter. Enter Kate Duffy.
Kate was just starting out herself, a young editor at the paperback house, Popular Library. She answered my query cordially: she was intrigued, she wanted more, did I have chapters? (I didn’t–but not for long.) Every writer remembers that first letter that said, “I like your idea, I like the way you write, I want to see your book in print.” It’s fixed in my mind. I remember the exact place I stood in the sunny front room of our Cambridge apartment, the look and feel of the envelope as I ripped it open, and the whoop I let out as I danced around the house.
I would never tell that story to Kate, I imagine. Or maybe I would–it’s such a cliche and so much time has flowed by. Kate later left Popular, moved to London, and I fell out of touch with her. I didn’t know until just recently that she later returned and became quite a successful editor of romance novels, and Editorial Director at Kensington Books, where she worked with many of the major romance authors.
Another indelible memory: meeting up with her in New York where she showed me off around Popular as if I were John Cheever, then took me to lunch at the trendy Russian Tea Room. Kate Duffy was a mensch. She was always cordial and supportive, always on my side–which is the natural stance a good editor assumes, always. I liked her so much that, after 40 years, nothing about the experience had gone pale, and ironically, it was only when I decided to surprise her with a phone call from the past that I learned she was gone.
Her death reinforced something I’ve known intellectually for years but never in my heart: that when we think of a person after many years, we need to make contact, because they won’t always be there. I recently lost an older cousin I admired and loved. He died a few months ago, and I had let New Year’s Eve–a time we always exchanged cards and phone calls–go by. I was preparing a dumb “Happy February” card for him when I got the call from his daughter.
Kate, I missed the boat and I’m so awfully sorry. But those days were great fun–and you’ll never know how thankful I’ve been over the years for your easy and open acceptance of me when I had no notion whether I was even worth a second look. Rest in peace, lady.
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