Kathleen E. Woodiwiss

All of her novels were historical romances set in varied backgrounds, including the American Civil War, 18th-century England, or Saxony in the time of William the Conqueror. The heroines of the novels are strong-willed young women with "a spark of life and determination." Woodiwiss describes her novels as "fairy tales. They are an escape for the reader, like an Errol Flynn movie."

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.

Woodiwiss was an avid equestrienne who at one time lived in a large house on 55 acres (220,000 m) 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.

At age 16, she met U.S. Air Force Second Lieutenant Ross Eugene Woodiwiss at a dance. They married the following year, on July 20, 1956. She attended school locally and graduated in 1957. Her husband's military career led them to live in Japan, where she worked part-time as a fashion model for an American-owned modeling agency. After over three years in Japan, the family moved to Topeka, Kansas and then settled in Minnesota. During these years, she attempted to write a novel several times, but each time stopped in frustration at the slow pace of writing in longhand. After buying her husband an electric typewriter as a Christmas present, she appropriated the machine to begin her novel in earnest.

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.