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Zona Gale (August 26, 1874 – December 27, 1938) was an American writer. Born in Portage, Wisconsin, which she often used as a setting in her writing, she attended Wayland Academy in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin. Later she entered the University of Wisconsin-Madison, from which she received a Bachelor of Literature degree in 1895, and four years later a Master's degree.

Life and work

After graduation, Gale wrote for newspapers in Milwaukee and New York City. However, before long she gave up journalism to focus on fiction writing. She then published her first novel, Romance Island (1906), and began the very popular series of "Friendship Village" stories.

In 1912, Gale moved back to Portage, which she would call home for the rest of her life, although alternating with trips to New York. In 1920, she published the novel Miss Lulu Bett, which depicts life in the Midwestern United States. She adapted it as a play, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1921. In the same year, Gale took an active role in the creation of the Wisconsin Equal Rights Law, which prohibits discrimination against women.

Bibliography

Novels

• Romance Island (1906)
• Christmas: A Story (1912)
• Heart's Kindred (1915)
• A Daughter of the Morning (1917)
• Birth (1918)
• Miss Lulu Bett (1920)
• Faint Perfume (1923)
• Preface to Life (1926)
• Borgia (1929)
• Papa La Fleur (1933)
• Light Woman (1937)
• Magna (1939)

Short stories

• The Loves of Pelleas and Etarre (1907)
• Friendship Village (1908)
• Friendship Village Love Stories (1909)
• Mothers to Men (1911)
• When I Was a Little Girl (1913)
• Neighborhood Stories (1914)
• Peace in Friendship Village (1919)
• The Neighbors (1920)
• Yellow Gentians and Blue (1927)
• Old-Fashioned Tales (1933)

Plays

• The Neighbors (1914) (in Wisconsin Plays, edited by T.H. Dickinson)
• Miss Lulu Bett (1920) (dramatization of her novel)
• Uncle Jimmy (1922)
• Mr. Pitt (1925)
• The Clouds (1932)
• Evening Clothes (1932)
• Faint Perfume (1934) (dramatization of her novel)

Poetry

• The Secret Way (1921)

Essays and non-fiction

• Civic Improvement in the Little Towns (1913) (pamphlet)
• What Women Won in Wisconsin (1922) (pamphlet)
• "The Novel of Tomorrow" (1922) (in The Novel of Tomorrow and the Scope of Fiction by Twelve American Novelists)
• Portage, Wisconsin and Other Essays (1928)
• Frank Miller of Mission Inn (biography) (1938)