Literary agent Roger Freet, 56, died on March 18 from complications from pancreatic cancer. Freet started in publishing as a publicity intern at Princeton University Press in 1997, then worked as associate director of marketing and publicity at HarperOne before moving to editorial. He became an agent at Foundry Literary + Media, then moved to Folio as vice president in 2020. Felice Picano, 81, a novelist, essayist, and poet who chronicled gay male life, died on March 12 in Los Angeles. Picano was the author of 17 novels and eight volumes of memoir, and also founded Sea Horse Press in […]
Obits
Obituary: Jacques de Spoelberch
Agent Jacques de Spoelberch, 88, died on December 26, 2024 in Connecticut. Born in Belgium, de Spoelberch attended Princeton University and worked at Houghton Mifflin as an editor, where he published James Dickey’s Deliverance. He became a literary agent in 1971 and launched his own agency in 1975. According to a tribute from friend and writer Neil Kirk, de Spoelberch was signing new clients as recently as last fall. “He was a kind and gentle soul whose elegance and eloquence was only exceeded by his erudition,” Kirk writes.
Obituary: John Feinstein
Sportswriter John Feinstein, 69, died on March 13, likely of a heart attack, the New York Times reports. Feinstein was the author of more than 40 books about basketball, baseball, tennis, football, golf, and the Olympics, including 1986’s A Season on the Brink. Last year, he published Five Banners: Inside the Duke Dynasty (Duke University Press) and The Ancient Eight: College Football’s Ivy League and the Game They Play Today (Grand Central).
Obituaries: Melody Beattie, Geoff Nicholson, Anna Elisabeth Suter
Codependent No More author Melody Beattie, 76, died on February 27 of heart failure. After its publication in 1986, the book spent 129 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. Spiegel & Grau took over the rights in 2022 and sold more than 400,000 copies. Publishing director Nicole Dewey said, “You could call her the mother of the self-help genre.” Novelist Geoff Nicholson, 71, died on January 18 of chronic myelomonocytic leukemia. Nicholson wrote 17 novels and 10 works of nonfiction, including 1997’s Bleeding London and 2023’s Walking on Thin Air: A Life’s Journey in 99 Steps. Former literary […]
Obituary: Bruce Westwood
Founder of Westwood Creative Artists Bruce Westwood, 84, died peacefully at home on February 28. Originally a venture capitalist, he paired with Sterling Lord to create Sterling Lord Canada, and then created WCA in 1995 following the acquisition of McKnight Gosewich Associates and the Lucinda Vardey Agency. The agency notes that, “Bruce’s foundational belief was to build from within, and he was so pleased that the new owners of the agency came up through its ranks. If you’d like to honor Bruce’s memory and legacy, we can think of no more appropriate way than to raise a glass of rosé […]
Obituaries: John Casey, Joe Wambaugh
Novelist John Casey, 86, died on February 22 of complications from dementia. Casey was the author of Spartina, which won the National Book Award in 1989. He taught creative writing at the University of Virginia from 1972 to 2018, when he retired after the school recommended his dismissal based on student complaints of sexual harassment. Author Joe Wambaugh, 88, died on February 28 of esophageal cancer. He wrote 16 novels and five nonfiction books inspired by his own police work, including 1973’s The Onion Field. Wambaugh was part of the Los Angeles Police Department for 14 years and published his […]