Jean Taylor Retires as Times Associate Editor

Jean Sharley Taylor, who as associate editor of The Times directed the paper’s features sections for the last 14 years, retired Monday.

Taylor came to The Times in 1971 as women’s editor and later edited the View section. Named associate editor in 1975, she presided over the creation of a number of sections, including daily Calendar, the Book Review and the Los Angeles Times Magazine. During that period, The Times won three Pulitzer Prizes for arts coverage.

In the last two years, Taylor has been the moving force behind the creation of The Times’ computerized reading lab and a member of the literacy committee of the American Society of Newspaper Editors.

She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 1988 Women Behind the News Award from Women in Communications and the Penney-Missouri Award for features editing. She also has been a Pulitzer Prize juror and member of the Southwest Committee of the Rhodes Scholarships.

Before coming to Los Angeles, Taylor was associate editor of the Arizona Republic and also had worked as a reporter for the Detroit Free Press.

At a retirement reception last week, Editor and Executive Vice President Shelby Coffey III cited the growth of the paper’s features sections under Taylor and described her as “a leader and a lover of all that’s best in newspapers.”

Until a replacement is named, the feature departments will report to Assistant Managing Editor John Brownell, Coffey said.