Ruth Bridget Coughlin, former book editor at the Detroit News, passed away on December 25 in Dover, N.J. She was 71 years old.
Before moving into her role at the newspaper, Coughlin worked as an editor at Harper and Delacorte Press. She was married to William J. Coughlin, a federal administrative law judge and novelist, whom she edited while working at Delacorte.
In June 1991, William Coughlin was diagnosed with terminal liver cancer, and died nine months later. Coughlin wrote about her husband's illness and the aftermath of his death in Grieving: A Love Story, published by Random House in 1993.
In remembering her friend, Detroit News writer and columnist Laura Berman remembers Coughlin as "a woman of style and substance, a reader who could communicate her subtle understanding of books so well that authors she admired often became her friends."
She is survived by her brother, the actor Michael J. Pollard, and her cousin, Alicia Nordquist.
