Author Susan Bergman died Sunday, Jan. 1, in Barrington, Ill, after a three-year battle with brain cancer, according to the Chicago Tribune. She was 48.

A teacher of literature and writing, Bergman, who earned a bachelor's degree from Wheaton College and a doctorate in literature from Northwestern University, was a contributing editor to many magazines, including Books and Culture.

In her 1994 book, Anonymity: The Secret Life of an American Family(Farrar Straus & Giroux), she told the story of her father, Don Heche, a church music director who became one of the first victims of AIDS after leading a secret life as a homosexual.

Bergman wrote the soon-to-be-published novel Buried Life and was an editor of the anthology Martyrs: Contemporary Writers on Modern Lives of Faith from Orbis Books.

One of her sisters is actress Anne Heche.

Besides her sister, Bergman is survived by her husband, Judson; two daughters, Elise and Natalie; two sons, Elliot and Bennet; her mother, Nancy Heche; and another sister, Abigail Heche. Her brother, Nathan, preceded her in death.

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