Best Selling Novelist Belva Plain Dies at 95

Novelist Belva Plain, author of more than 20 books, has died. Plain was popular for her epic novels of family and forgiveness. She never owned a computer and wrote in longhand on a yellow pad. A disciplined worker, she wrote for several hours in the morning five days a week. She produced a 500- or 600-page novel every year or so. She became a best selling novelist at the age of 59. Her first novel Evergreen was published in 1978. It follows Anna, a feisty, redheaded Jewish immigrant girl from Poland in turn-of-the-century New York, whose family story continues through several decades. Plain's final novel, Heartwood, extends the saga. Heartwood will be published in February 2011. Almost 30 million copies of her books are in print, and they have been translated into 22 languages. Twenty of the novels have appeared on The New York Times best-seller list.