Gale, Zona (1874-1938) American fiction writer and playwright. Born in Portage, WI, Zona Gale earned a BA (1895) and MA (1899) in literature from the University of Wisconsin. She worked as an editor and writer for newspapers in Wisconsin and New York City until resigning to pursue a literary career. Her first novel, Romance Island, appeared in 1906, and she became a prolific writer of short stories and novels, often set in small Midwestern towns. Under pressure from her mother, she left New York City and returned to Portage in 1909, although she made extended visits to New York City. Throughout her career, she support progressive causes, including feminism and pacifism. She adapted her best-known novel Miss Lulu Bett (1920), featuring the feminist revolt of its small-town heroine, for the stage; it was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1922. It is not clear when Gale and Cather met. Gale sent a letter introducing Margery Lattimer in 1925, but the bulk of their correspondence begins in 1928, when Cather wrote that she was “haunted by Portage” (#0949), likely after reading Gale’s Portage, Wisconsin and Other Essays (Knopf 1928). Cather also wrote of her admiration of Gale’s Borgia (Knopf 1929), and Gale invited Cather to visit Portage to write. Most of their correspondence testifies, however, to their failure to see each other when Gale visited New York City. Gale began an autobiography but died suddenly of pneumonia before completing it.