Veteran Miami Herald editor Kathy Martin bids farewell to colleagues today

Long-time Miami Herald food and features editor Kathy Martin, a 32-year veteran at the paper, is saying goodbye to her colleagues today.

No word yet on who will replace her.

From: Hamersly, Kendall khamersly@miamiherald.com
Date: Wed, Feb 5, 2014 at 11:23 AM
Subject: Kathy Martin
To: MIA Newsroom

This is by now an open secret, but here is the formal announcement: Kathy Martin will be leaving the Herald at the end of this month to pursue a new career in freelance book editing. It goes without saying that she will be sorely missed for many reasons, most prominent of which has to be the rigorous editing skill she brings to each piece of copy she touches. Please congratulate Kathy. We'll have a newsroom event toward month's end to commemorate Kathy's three decades-plus career at the Herald. And I'll be posting a position to take on the challenging task of replacing her.

Kathy's bio is filled with interesting experiences and association with plenty of memorable colleagues. Here it is:

Kathy came to work at the Herald as a City Desk copy editor in 1981 after three years with the AP bureau here. She had moved to Miami from Washington, where she was the press secretary to a congressman from her home state of Wisconsin, an outgrowth of a Medill News Service assignment while she was a graduate student at Northwestern.

What started out as another stop along the way became a long-term commitment after her friend Madeleine Blais set her up with John Dorschner, whom she married in 1983. (The introduction came about after she lamented being dumped by another Herald reporter, so the newspaper was formative in her personal as well as her professional life.)

Her City Desk sojourn included memorable Sunday night-slot shifts editing Edna Buchanan’s weekend murder roundups. She then became the editor of the North Dade Neighbors, overseeing a crackerjack staff that included Lisa Getter, Frank Cerabino, Craig Gemoules and Jeff Weiss.

Her association with the Features Department began in 1985, when she was appointed editor of the Sunday Arts section. After the birth of her first son later that year, she began a 15-year part-time interlude, working variously as assistant arts editor, assistant book editor and assistant food editor. This coincided with an extended period of PTA activism in Miami-Dade County Public Schools that culminated in her successful campaign to oust an unethical and incompetent principal at Horace Mann Middle School.

She became food editor in 1995 upon the departure of her predecessor, Felicia Gressette. She returned to full-time employment in 2000, and soon after the Association of Food Journalists recognized the Herald’s food section as one of the nation’s three best in its circulation category. She ghost wrote the 1994 cookbook “A Taste of Old Cuba” by Maria Josefa de Lluria O’Higgins (HarperCollins) and co-wrote, with Carole Kotkin, “Mmmmiami: Tempting Tropical Tastes for Home Cooks Everywhere” (Henry Holt, 1998).

Since 2009, her responsibilities have expanded to include the Saturday Tropical Life section, jazz and classical music coverage and a host of fixtures. She has also had the pleasure of working with dance and music writer Jordan Levin.

She looks forward to a new career as a freelance editor and writer and to a flexible schedule that will afford more time with her husband and their sons, Andrew Dorschner, 28, a yacht chef, and Peter Dorschner, 25, a medical student