Zona Gale

Zona Gale (August 26, 1874 - December 27, 1938) was an American author and playwright. Gale was born in Portage, Wisconsin, which she often used as a setting in her writing. She attended Wayland Academy in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, and later 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. After college, Gale wrote for newspapers in Milwaukee and New York City, for six years. A visit to Portage in...See more

Zona Gale (August 26, 1874 - December 27, 1938) was an American author and playwright. Gale was born in Portage, Wisconsin, which she often used as a setting in her writing. She attended Wayland Academy in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, and later 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. After college, Gale wrote for newspapers in Milwaukee and New York City, for six years. A visit to Portage in 1903 proved a turning point in her literary life, as seeing the sights and sounds of town life led her to comment that her 'old world was full of new possibilities.' Gale had found the material she needed for her writing, and returned to Portage in 1904 to concentrate full time on fiction. She wrote and published there until her 1938 death, but made trips to New York In 1928 at the age of fifty-four she married William L. Breese, also of Portage. Gale died of pneumonia in a Chicago hospital in 1938. See less