The Secret Way

Zona Gale (1874-1938) was an American novelist, short story writer, playwright and poet who became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1921 with her dramatization of her 1920 novel Miss Lulu Bett which depicts life in the Midwestern United States. She was born in Portage, Wisconsin, which she often used as a setting in her fiction. After attending Wayland Academy in Beaver Dam she entererd the University of Wisconsin from which she received a Bachelor of Literature degree in 1895, and four years later her master's degree. She went on to write for newspapers in Milwaukee and New York City for six years but a return visit to her hometown of Portage proved a turning point in her literary career as she found there the material she needed for her writing. In 1904 she settled back in Portage to concentrate full-time on fiction writing, remaining there until her death although in the intervening years she made frequent trips to New York and California. Her first novel Romance Island was publ;ished in1906, and began the very popular Friendship Village series of stories. She was an active member of the National Women's Party and her activism on behalf of women was her way of helping to solve a problem she repeatedly returned to in her fiction - women's frustration at their lack of opportunities. This collection of her poetry was first published in 1921.