On the Loss of Our Contributor, Robin Harders
It is with great sadness that we would like to tell our readers, past and present, that Robin Harders, who contributed many smart and thought-provoking reviews and op-eds to Dear Author, passed away today. Our deepest condolences to her friends and loved ones.
Over the past two years, lymphedema, breast cancer, bacterial pneumonia, and other health complications saw her hospitalized. Less than two weeks ago she had a stroke, and yesterday she made the decision to move to palliative care. More details can be found on her GoFundMe page.
Robin was as smart, incisive, and engaging in person as in her reviews. She worked as a Policy and Program Analyst at University of California Office of the President, and before that, as a Special Assistant to the Dean of Students at UC Irvine. She held a JD, a PhD in English, and good friendships. She loved dogs, good cooking (especially Persian food) and fine chocolate.
When I first met her online, before Dear Author’s inception, she mentioned that she had once been active in a horse rescue charity. She had a strong sense of fairness.
Her posts made us—and other readers, we’re sure—consider their topics from a new angle. Her reviews were as thorough as they were thoughtful.
For a time, she also worked as a freelance editor, with authors including Carolyn Jewel, Cecilia Grant, and Ella Quinn.
It was an honor to be Robin’s colleagues. We have missed her since she left Dear Author, and will miss her even more now.
You can find Robin’s Dear Author posts, written under the pen name Janet, here.
Robin treasured her days at Dear Author and greatly valued all of you, her colleagues. She loved taking on challenging topics and talking about books. She was one of the smartest people I’ve ever known, and I was blessed to have her as a friend these past 15 years.
She fought so hard, and so long, against a range of medical challenges almost impossible to fathom, and the decision to stop fighting was not an easy one for her to make. But with typical determination, once she made it, that was it. Her passing was swift and painless. I already miss her more than I can say.
Thank you for honoring her with this post.
I only knew Robin from what she chose to share in her posts here and from brief communication off list and I am sitting here so very sad. I admired her mind so much . Thank you for this post Janine .
@Julia McDermott: Thank you so much for starting that GoFundMe. I’m so glad you said there that it made her realize that people appreciated her. We really did.
What she went through sounds rough, and I’m so glad she had your friendship and support until the very end.
Robin was such a fierce champion of Romance and Romance authors even when most everyone was making fun of readers and writers of Romance. Her takes on authors who changed the genre (and sometimes to much gnashing of teeth) before anyone understood that had happened was prescient. She became my good friend, and I will miss her terribly.
I’m absolutely gutted and shocked. I haven’t been on certain parts of social media as much (nor am that connected) so I had no idea that Robin was dealing with so much. I was first introduced to Robin when she reviewed on Dear Author and then connected with her on social media. She wasn’t just insightful, intelligent, and a voracious reader, but she was also so very kind. I was a nobody, struggling author, but she never made me feel less. She was just so, so kind. I loved our book talks online. I loved her wit and humor. I’m so deeply saddened by this news. Thank you to Juli and Carolyn and all her other loved ones who so lovingly tended after Robin. My deepest sympathies. Robin will be so missed.
Robin was an incredibly smart and thoughtful contributor to DA. She will be so missed.
May her memory be a blessing.
I enjoyed Robin’s wide-ranging daily news articles and reviews but her op/eds were always amazing. Sharp, incisive, well written and thought provoking – they were a joy to read.
May her memory be a blessing.
I’m so sorry to hear this. My deepest condolences to her family, friends, and loved ones.
My sympathies to all who cared for Robin/Janet.
My sympathies to Robin’s friends and family. I have been away from romance reading and review sites and social media for a while, but remember and respect her thoughtful posts on a variety of topics.
I first “met” Robin here and then got to know her a bit elsewhere online as well. And then it was my privilege to review here with her. She was a very special, smart lady and she will be greatly missed.
I only knew Robin through her posts here at DA and I was so sad when I got the news through Julia’s Go Fund Me update yesterday.
I’m so grateful to Julia for reconnecting me (and romancelandia) to Robin’s writing through the Go Fund Me and I’m glad that she was aware that she was remembered and well regarded before she died.
I still think about Robin’s essay about reader consent, more than 10 years later.
I haven’t been in touch with Robin in recent years, but at one time, in the mid to late 2000s, we had an email correspondence going. I went back to reread some of it today and found something she said, in imparting advice, that was just so Robin that I decided to copy it here. I think she might want me to, and I think it gets to the core of who she was here, in her posts at DA.
@Janine: Thank you for posting that.
I’m gutted to hear this news. Robin was one of the sharpest people I’ve met in my life, and I think about her perspectives so frequently. She changed the way I think about romance with her thoughts on reader consent. She changed the genre. How lucky were we to see it.
@julie – thank you so much for setting up the GoFundMe. Robin was such a bright mind and it’s a true loss to all of us that she is gone. She always had such razor sharp insight on so many things and you could talk to her about anything. She will be missed.
I’m so sorry to hear this. I have enjoyed Robin’s words here at DA over the years.
Robin was one of the people who drew me into reading romance. She showed that like any writing it could be cliched and superficial, but like any writing it could be smart and insightful. She was able to do that through her own smart and insightful critiques and commentary. Years ago we had some direct email communication, which I greatly enjoyed, and she shared with me an extra copy of Laura London’s THE WINDFLOWER (by then out of print). Her intelligence and generosity will be missed.
@Susan/DC:
Now that takes me back to the days of OOP books where you had to scour used book stores and you bought up everything by an author you liked.
@Susan/DC: She sent me a couple of health related products years ago, to help with medical issues. She was generous.
@Susan/DC: I still have the copy of The Windflower that she gave me! She would buy any used copy of that book that she found, because it was her favorite book to share with people. She wanted more people to talk about it with!
She was very generous; she loved to give people gifts, and she was likely to share a book or a product rather than just recommend it. And she was a genius at finding out-of-print books or other hard-to-find products — she joked about starting a new career as a personal shopper.
To all: THE WINDFLOWER was clearly one of Robin’s favorite books, and I loved that it showed how she could be disciplined in her analyses, strong in her opinions, yet have a warm heart open to books such as this. May those who loved her and will miss her the most take comfort in reading the books that sparked joy and gave her comfort.