Longtime literary editor Bill Hogan and his daughter, Mary Ann Hogan, loved books, spent their lives writing about books but never published a book of their own — until now..

When the writing isn’t finished

Nine days before my wife died, she forwarded a Brevity Blog post, “The Death of a Writer,” which asked:

“Who is going to deal with your literary legacy, and what do you want done?”

My wife wrote, “… interesting re what to do…”

She added a lifesaver emoji.

My wife, Mary Ann Hogan, journalist and teacher, died June 13, 2019, her “tango with lymphoma” ended, her life’s literary work unfinished.

Her manuscript explored her relationship with her father, William Hogan, longtime literary editor of the San Francisco Chronicle. Though he spent his life writing about books, Bill Hogan never wrote one of his own.

Mary Ann died thinking her book would redeem them both.

But it wasn’t finished.

So now what?

— —

In “The Death of a Writer,” Allison K Williams reported what she did as a friend’s “literary executor.” Read everything, she advised. Get help deciding what needs to be published.

So I read everything. My wife’s private journals, texts, social media, photo captions, drafts, published work, all of it. Not to snoop, as Williams noted, but to separate the beauty from the garbage.