The American writer Nora Ephron, who wrote the screenplays for popular romantic comedies along with a series of memorable humorous essays, has died in New York.

Family and friends say she had been suffering from a blood disease. She was 71 years old.

The daughter of Hollywood screenwriters, Ephron modeled her writing style on the classic humorists of the 1930s, including Dorothy Parker and Robert Benchley. Many of her comic essays focused on her life and were frequently self-deprecating.

She began her writing career in the early 1960s as a reporter for The New York Post newspaper and moved into magazines and the movies.

Her first screenplay, Silkwood, was based on the true story about a whistleblower in a plutonium plant.

But Ephron became better known for her romantic comedies — When Harry Met Sally, You've Got Mail, and Heartburn, which chronicled the story of her failed marriage to famed newspaper reporter Carl Bernstein. She also directed the hit comedies Sleepless in Seattle and Julie and Julia.

Her screenwriting skills earned her three Oscar nominations.