“Her new home inspired characteristic enthusiasm. ‘I’m about to bore everyone on Instagram with my new obsession: the signage, shutters and shiny doors of Spitalfields,’ she wrote. ‘I live in this little pocket of early 18th century Georgian homes, and it’s like a movie set. (Apparently it literally is, because period movies like anything Austen are filmed here.)’
“Howard was born in Manchester, N.H., and her father’s work as a telecommunications engineer took her from Arkansas to Scotland as a girl. She studied engineering herself briefly at Clemson University in South Carolina.
“‘She realized after a semester that wasn’t her calling,’ said her sister, Alison Howard, a Seattle attorney.
“Howard studied literature at the University of North Carolina, Asheville, and journalism at Northwestern University, where she earned a master’s degree. She worked as a copy editor at the Houston Chronicle and the Abilene Reporter-News before joining The Times in 1992.
“Howard was diagnosed with cancer in 2018, with the disease already in an advanced stage. She returned to Maine from London late last year and continued working for Reuters until recent weeks.”
Read more here.