She was born at Portage, Wisconsin (which she often used as a setting in her writing), and attended Wayland Academy at Beaver Dam, Wisconsin. Later she entered the University of Wisconsin, from which institution she received a Bachelor of Literature degree in 1895, and four years later a Master's degree.
After graduation Gale wrote for newspapers in Milwaukee and New York. However, before long she gave up journalism to focus on writing. She then published her first novel "Romance Island" and began the very popular series of "Friendship Village" stories.
In 1912, Gale moved back to Portage, which she would call 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 Midwest. She adapted it as a play, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1921.
In 1921, Zona Gale took an active role in the creation of the Wisconsin Equal Rights Law, which prohibits discrimination of women.
Bibliography
Romance Island (1906) - novel
The Loves of Pelleas and Etarre (1907) - short stories
Friendship Village (1908) - short stories
Friendship Village Love Stories (1909) - short stories
Mothers to Men (1911) - short stories
Christmas: A Story (1912)
Civic Improvement in the Little Towns (1913) - essay
When I Was a Little Girl (1913) - short stories
Neighborhood Stories (1914) - short stories
The Neighbors (1914) - in Wisconsin Plays, T.H. Dickinson, ed.
Heart's Kindred (1915)
A Daughter of the Morning (1917) - novel
Birth (1918) - novel
Peace in Friendship Village (1919) - short stories
Miss Lulu Bett (1920) - novel
The Neighbors (1920) - short stories
Miss Lulu Bett (1920) - dramatization of the novel
The Secret Way (1921) - poetry
Uncle Jimmy (1922) - play
What Women Won in Wisconsin (1922) - essay
The Novel of Tomorrow (1922) - in The Novel of tomorrow : and the scope of fiction
Faint Perfume (1923) - novel
Mr. Pitt (1925) - play
Preface to Life (1926) - novel
Yellow Gentians and Blue (1927) - short stories
Portage, Wisconsin and Other Essays (1928)
Borgia (1929) - novel
Bridal Pond (1930) - novel
The Clouds (1932) - play
Evening Clothes (1932) - play
Papa La Fleur (1933) - novel
Old-Fashioned Tales (1933)
Faint Perfume (1934) - dramatization of the novel
Light Woman (1937) - novel
Frank Miller of Mission Inn (1938) - biography
Magna (1939) - novel
External Link
Writings by Gale (http://www.gutenberg.org/author/Zona+Gale) at Project Gutenberg
Gale was one of few fiction writers of her time to write contemporary stories emphasizing local color, customs, and the depiction of ordinary people.
ZonaGale was born in Portage, Wisconsin, on August 26, 1874, and, with the exception of a brief time in Minnesota, lived there until she entered the University of Wisconsin.
Gale’s activism on behalf of women was her way to solve politically a problem she returned to repeatedly in her novels: women’s frustration at their lack of opportunities.
ZonaGale belongs to the relatively large group of American midwestern regionalist authors that includes Sinclair Lewis, Edgar Lee Masters, Willa Cather, Floyd Dell, Sherwood Anderson, Susan Glaspell, Theodore Dreiser, and Ruth Suckow.
ZonaGale was born in Portage, Wisconsin, on 26 August 1874, the only child of Charles Franklin Gale (1842-1929), a railroad engineer, and Eliza Beers Gale (1846-1923), a teacher.
ZonaGale noted later in her life that "I inherited predominant elements of character from both parents.