Kate White on Law and Order, Nancy Drew, and Not Meeting Her First Husband

Kate-Book, which bills itself as a website “For Kates, By Kates, and about Kates,” interviewed Kate White — the woman formerly known as editor of Cosmopolitan until yesterday — about (as you may have guessed) being a Kate, as well as some other things.

As it turns out, she was once a Kathy, but Kate Hepburn (and a friend named Dee) changed everything:

It says Kathleen on my birth certificate and I was called Kathy for years-as were about six other girls in my grade at school. When I was 14, Dee announced that I was destined to do cool things in life and I needed a more distinctive name, like Kate Hepburn. He started calling me Kate from that day on, which made me feel very special. Before long so did my family, though I couldn’t convince anyone else to make the switch. I started to despair that the name wasn’t going to stick. Then, on my first day at college, a girl from my floor walked by my room and noticed the sign that said Kathy White on my door and said, “Oh, there’s another Kathy on the floor, too. We’ll have to figure out a way to tell you apart.” I blurted out, “That’s easy. Because I’m actually called Kate.” It was such a thrilling moment for me. I half expected her to say, “No, you’re not, you little liar.” But she just smiled and shook my hand. And that’s when it really began. Before long the people who knew me as Kate outnumbered the ones who called me Kathy.

Other surprisingly endearing Kate White facts: the muse for her first book was Law and Order, because she read to the sound of reruns (“I probably should have dedicated that book to Assistant District Attorney Jack McCoy.”), her favorite literary character is Nancy Drew ,and if she could do one thing in her life over, it would be “not meet my first husband.” Why is White so much more enjoyable than her (former) magazine?