Zona Gale was born in Portage, Wisconsin. After graduating from the University of Wisconsin in 1895, she worked as a newspaper reporter in Milwaukee, then joined the staff of the New York Evening Post in 1901. Preferring the life of a freelance writer, she left newspaper work to write short stories for such magazines as Harper's Weekly, Smart Set, Woman's Home Companion, and the Outlook. She also expanded her circle of New York literary acquaintances--who included Edmund Clarence Stedman, William Vaughn Moody, Harriet Monroe--to include the poet Ridgely Torrence. Deciding between marrying him or returning to her parents in Portage, she chose in 1904 to break off her engagement and make Portage her permanent home. In 1928 at the age of fifty-four she married William L. Breese, also of Portage. Except for occasional travel she lived there until her death. During her lifetime twenty-two separate volumes of her fiction, four of nonfiction...