Young adult author Huntley Fitzpatrick, known for her realistic contemporary teen romances, died on April 8 following a long illness. She was 58.
Fitzpatrick was born October 27, 1963 in New York City and grew up in the small coastal town of Essex, Conn., in “a house full of bookworms,” she told Something About the Author, with parents who encouraged her early passion for stories and writing. As a teenager, much of her writing was keeping a detailed journal, something she would refer to when working on her books.
Following her graduation from Concord Academy in 1981, Fitzpatrick earned a B.A. in English from Yale University. Taking a course taught by the late author Madeleine L’Engle inspired Fitzpatrick to dive even more fully into her own fiction writing. Fitzpatrick was drawn to a career involving books and worked in academic publishing before landing a job as an editor at Harlequin. Reading the slush pile and eventually editing manuscripts was her “writing career ‘jump-start’ ” Fitzpatrick told goodreads.com in 2015. “In order to tell [authors] the strengths and weaknesses of their work, I had to figure those out on my own,” she said.
In 2012, Fitzpatrick made her YA debut with the publication of My Life Next Door (Dial), a warmly received summer romance about first love. She followed up that work with What I Thought Was True (Dial, 2014) featuring the romance between two teens from different socio-economic backgrounds. Her third novel, The Boy Most Likely To (Dial, 2015), returns to a favorite character and the world of My Life Next Door. All three books are set in the fictional Stony Bay, Conn., the type of place Fitzpatrick knew very well. “Stony Bay is an amalgam of several towns I’ve known and loved,” she said in an interview with SouthCoast Today. “The beaches and the woods where the characters walk are more or less directly derived from the places I see around me every day,” she added.
Fitzpatrick, along with her husband John, and their six children, was a longtime resident of Dartmouth, Mass. She noted how fond she was of her time there. “I’ve been really lucky to live in a relatively small town full of people who have welcomed first my growing family, and then my books,” she said. “People have been really kind — buying the books, using them in book clubs, asking if I can speak to classes in local schools. That kind of support has meant the world to me.”
Dial executive editor Jess Garrison, who was Fitzpatrick’s editor, shared this remembrance: “Knowing Huntley and working with her on her three fantastic young adult novels were among the happiest experiences of my editor’s life. I am so lucky to have seen her work, to have fallen in love with her writing and the characters into whom she breathed such extraordinary life and complexity, to have known her and laughed with her and worked hard with her to create stories that light readers up and will last and last. I am crushed at her loss, and my heart goes out to her loving family and friends.”
Fellow author and close friend Kristan Higgins announced Fitzpatrick’s death on Facebook at the request of Fitzpatrick’s family. “I shared many wonderful weekends with Huntley, just the two of us or with our other writing friends, the Plotmonkeys,” Higgins wrote. “Those times were filled with late night talks, great food, and long bouts of uncontrollable laughter. She was brilliant, kind, warm, funny, and compassionate, loved red lipstick, fabulous skirts and had an old-fashioned sensibility that made her seem from another era. Fair winds and following seas, dear Huntley. How loved you are.”
