Kathleen E. Woodiwiss, née Kathleen Erin Hogg , was a U.S. writer, pioneered the historical romance genre with the 1972 publication of her novel The Flame and the Flower. She was born Kathleen Erin Hogg in Alexandria, Louisiana, the youngest of eight children of Charles Wingrove Hogg, a disabled World War I veteran, and his wife, Gladys . As a child, she relished creating her own stories, and by age six was telling herself stories at night to help fall asleep. Her father died suddenly when Woodiwiss was only twelve, leaving her to be raised by her mother and older sisters. Woodiwiss... would later remark that, "every single one of us had minds of our own even then; I was no exception. I suppose that carried over into my creations of heroines who weren't weak-willed." At the age of sixteen, she met U.S. Air Force Second Lieutenant Ross Eugene Woodiwis at a dance. They married the following year, on July 20, 1956. She attended school locally and graduated in 1957. Her husband's military career led them to live in Japan, where she worked part-time as a fashion model for an American-owned modeling agency.
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