Carolyn Reidy, a pillar of my publishing career and the woman at the helm of Simon and Schuster for years, passed away on Tuesday of this week, succumbing to a heart attack at her home in the Hamptons.  My first two manuscripts were purchased by Avon Books in 1983 when she was president of the company.  I was a completely unknown and very minor author at that point in my career, and the people running the show in New York were far above my pay grade.  I knew my editor, John Douglas, and that was it.

A couple of years passed and Avon Books celebrated its 50th anniversary.  By then Carolyn Reidy was the Publisher at Avon and she summoned one an all to a party at Rockefeller Center in New York City.  It was there I met her for the first time, standing in the receiving line.  And it was also there that I learned the storied history of paperbacks.  They were invented during World War II, designed to be lightweight enough that soldiers could carry books with them into the field in their pockets or back pack—hence the name “pocket book.”

In the world of literary snobbism, original paperbacks, in which form I was being published, are generally looked down upon. At one point along the way, I was a volunteer for the Pacific Northwest Writers’ Conference, and my job was to pick up an editor arriving from New York at SeaTac, drive her to the conference at Pacific Lutheran University, and then return her to the airport when the conference ended.  On the trip from the airport, the editor whose name I can’t recall told me that the world of original paperbacks “is where anybody who wants to get published can get published.”  Thank you very much!  I took her to the conference, I dropped her off, I have no idea how she got back.  For all I know she’s still down there wandering around in the wilds of Tacoma somewhere.  I guess I do hold a grudge, but  I digress. Again.

When Until Proven Guilty came out in 1985, Adams News, the local book wholesaler, purchased a total of fifty copies for the entire Seattle area.  Several years later, they were buying my books in pallets, thanks in no small measure to the careful shepherding of my first sales rep, Holly Turner.  But pallets of books meant something, even in New York, and when Carolyn Reidy made a publisher’s sojourn around the states, meeting and greeting authors like a member of royalty greeting his or her subjects, she and John Douglas made a stop in Seattle where Bill and I were invited to dinner.

The meal was held at a downtown Ruth’s Chris steakhouse which was located on Fifth Avenue at the time.  Carolyn and my editor were staying at the Alexis, five blocks away and straight down the hill on First Avenue.  Publishing dinners aren’t your basic fast-food dining experience.  We’re talking cocktails, wine with dinner, dessert—all very civilized and time consuming.   We had met up at the hotel and walked up the hill to dinner (No small feat, by the way!)   It turns out this was winter, however, and by the time we emerged from the restaurant, it had snowed and was still snowing.

This was in the old days.  Both Carolyn and I were wearing high heels, and high heels, ten percent grade Seattle sidewalks, and snow just don’t mix.  So finally after almost falling flat, we both took off our heels and walked four downhill snowy blocks in our stockinged feet.  Talk about a bonding experience.  Sometime after that, Simon and Schuster stole Carolyn away from Avon Books.  I was sad to lose her, but even after she left, we always stayed in touch.

More years passed.  Avon Books morphed into Morrow and eventually into HarperCollins.  In the early 2000s Harper published the first Ali book, Edge of Evil, but then they declined to exercise the option to purchase a second one.  What’s a girl to do?  I called up my barefoot snowboarding pal, and the rest is history.  Since then I’ve had two publishers—Simon and Schuster for the Ali books and HarperCollins for everyone else.

Working with two major publishers means walking a bit of a tightrope with multiple pub dates, editors, marketing folks, and publicity people, and none of them entirely comfortable with working across those corporate lines of demarcation, but I’m happy to say we’ve all managed.

Two years ago, when Bill and I were in New York for ThrillerFest, we invited everybody from both sides of the aisle to a dinner party at an entirely appropriate restaurant called The Writing Room.  It was glorious.  My longtime agent and her husband were both there as was John Douglas, my first editor and Carolyn Reidy my first and, at the time, current publisher.  We sat next to each other and swapped stories, including our barefoot-in-the-snow adventure.  Among the guests were my then current editors—Lyssa Keusch and Susan Moldow along with any number of corporate folks—Lynn Grady, Liate Stehlik, Tara Parsons, Kaitlin Harri and Jennifer Hart.  Ditto my dueling publicity ladies—Julie Paulauski and Jessica Roth.

It was a bit of a roast, but it was also great fun.  In the process I had a chance to say a sincere and very public thank you to Carolyn Reidy for all her help along the way, and I’m so glad I did.  If I hadn’t thanked her then, I would have missed it entirely.

And that’s the reason I’m telling you about Carolyn Reidy today.  Lots of us are locked up at home right now.  Maybe there’s someone in your life that you could take the opportunity to say thank you to them in a very heartfelt way.  Maybe some of them are at risk, and I’m sure they’d appreciate hearing whatever you have to say.  Saying thank you will be good for them and good for you.  I believe that counts as a win/win.

Besides, there’s always the possibility you won’t get another chance.