Michelle Somers, who was associate publicity director at Knopf from 2000 to 2014, died on August 24 at her home in Brooklyn. She was 50.
In her more than 13 years at Knopf, Somers worked with such authors as Carl Bernstein, Lynne Cox, Maxine Hong Kingston, Paul Hendrickson, Gish Jen, Julie Otsuka, and Justice Sonia Sotomayor. She also worked with Toni Morrison on her books A Mercy and Home, as well as Martin Sherwin and Kai Bird on their Pulitzer Prize–winning biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer, American Prometheus.
"Michelle was such a caring and giving person to everyone who knew her," wrote Sotomayor in a letter to Somers's parents on August 31. Somers worked on Sotomayor's 2013 memoir My Beloved World, and she and her parents were once invited to Washington, D.C., to watch the Supreme Court in action and have lunch in the Justice's private chambers. "She touched so many lives with her kindness and gentle spirit," Sotomayor continued. "I am grateful I was able to know Michelle, not only professionally but as a friend."
Somers was born in Providence, Rhode Island, and lived in Brooklyn for 25 years. She graduated from Duke University in 1994 and had a passion for Duke basketball, as well as NPR and the theater.
Somers is survived by her parents and younger brother. As Somers lived for 43 years with type 1 diabetes, donations may be made in her memory to Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston.
