The article remembers Margo Howard, the American writer and advice columnist, as a distinctive voice whose candid, witty guidance continued her family’s well-known advice-column tradition. It argues that her work mattered because she combined personal experience with a willingness to address difficult relationships, marriage and social expectations directly.

Howard was the daughter of Ann Landers and the niece of Dear Abby, but forged her own career in journalism before writing Slate’s Dear Prudence column for eight years. She later wrote the syndicated Dear Margo and published memoirs, including work about her mother and her own four marriages, before retiring from regular advice-column deadlines in 2013.