Lee Hadley, popular creative writing professor and beloved young-adult novelist, died early this fall of cancer at the age of 60.

Hadley was well-known and loved for her many young adult books which she co-wrote with Annabelle Irwin under the name of Hadley Irwin. The two wrote several books which dealt with specific problems including age and incest.

Hadley Irwin’s first book, The Lilith Summer, was published in 1979, but they started writing together in 1975.

“She was very easy to write with,” Irwin said. “We always said that Hadley Irwin was a better writer than either Lee Hadley or Ann Irwin.”

The team worked together on rough drafts during the summer and revised during the school year. “She liked the process of writing, and I liked the revision process. She was really good with character and I was good with plot,” Irwin said.

Hadley was not only a fine writer, but also a caring teacher committed to young writers. She began teaching at ISU in 1969. Hadley and Irwin also traveled to elementary schools across Iowa to talk to children about their books and to encourage them to be writers.

Fern Kupfer, a friend of Hadley’s and fellow creative writing professor, said Hadley was a “wonderful writer and a terrific teacher. She was one of those professors who was warm, caring and genuinely liked students.”

Barbara Haas, another ISU creative writing professor, said Hadley will be greatly missed by the English department.

“What stays with me about Lee is just her beautiful sense of humor. It was her sense of humor that carried me through a lot of situations. I’ll miss that,” Haas said.

Kupfer said the young-adult novelist “really was a young adult herself. She always said, ‘Take off the gray hair and underneath I’m a 12-year-old girl.'”