Literary agent Wendy Weil Dies

Wendy Weil, a beloved literary agent known for her low-key but determined style and for an eclectic clientele of groundbreaking and best-selling authors, from Alice Walker and Rita Mae Brown to Fannie Flagg and Mark Helprin, has died. She was 72. Weil died on 22 September of a heart attack at her country home in Cornwall, Connecticut, her colleague Emma Patterson said on Tuesday. A New York City native and graduate of Wellesley College, Weil was in publishing for 50 years, starting in the training programme at Doubleday, then becoming an agent and eventually founding Wendy Weil Agency Inc in 1986. Among the books she helped get published were Walker’s The Color Purple, Helprin’s Winter’s Tale and Andrea Barrett’s Ship Fever, a 1996 story collection that was dedicated to Weil and won the National Book Award.Weil became an agent during a time of profound cultural upheaval, and in 1972 she helped get Walker’s work published in the newly created Ms magazine. Her clients included feminists, political activists and gay writers, among them Susan Brownmiller, Letty Cottin Pogrebin, Paul Monette and June Jordan.