Maureen Donnelly, longtime v-p and director of publicity at Penguin Books, died yesterday of breast cancer. She was 59.
She started her publishing career at Simon & Schuster and worked at New American Library before joining Penguin. According to the Star-Ledger, she was a trustee of the Roselle (N.J.) Library Board since 1999, and most recently was president. She was also a founding member of the Friends of the Roselle Library and founding member of the Roselle Oprah Book Club.
Visiting hours at the Sullivan Funeral Home, 146 East 2nd Ave., Roselle, N.J., are tomorrow, Wednesday, 2-4 p.m. and 7-9 p.m. The funeral will be held on Thursday, July 3, at 9 a.m., starting at the funeral home and then at the Church of St. Joseph the Carpenter, Roselle, where a Funeral Mass will be offered at 10 a.m. Condolences at sullivanfh.net.
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Allen Grossman, "an award-winning poet whose work bridged the Romantic and Modernist traditions, claiming nobility and power for poetry as a tool for both engaging the world and burrowing into the self," died last Friday, the New York Times reported. He was 82. His books include The Woman on the Bridge over the Chicago River, The Philosopher's Window and Other Poems, How to Do Things with Tears, Descartes' Loneliness and The Ether Dome and Other Poems.
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Dermot Healy, who "personified the notion that some writers write because they simply have to" and "knew Ireland, better than that; he understood and loved it, without rancor and without a hint of sentimentality," died June 29, the Irish Times reported, noting that with A Goat's Song (1994), he "wrote his great book, it is one of the finest Irish novels." Healy was 66.