Notable people · Writer · Women
Dawn Powell
Born in Mount Gilead, Powell wrote twelve novels, ten plays and hundreds of stories, mostly satires of small-town Ohio and New York. She was rediscovered after Gore Vidal championed her work in 1987.
At a glance
- Born
- 1896-11-28
- Died
- 1965-11-14
- Known as
- Writer, Women
- Organizations
- Scribner's
Life story
Dawn Powell was born in Mount Gilead in 1896. She wrote sharp, funny novels about Midwestern small towns and about people who move to New York.
From 1939 she worked with editor Maxwell Perkins at Scribner's. Her first big commercial success was A Time to Be Born in 1942, and her own favorite was Dance Night (1930).
She was a National Book Award nominee in 1963 and won the American Academy's Marjorie Peabody Waite Award in 1964. She lived in Greenwich Village and died there in 1965. Her books went out of fashion until Gore Vidal's 1987 essay in the New York Review of Books brought them back; she entered the New York State Writers Hall of Fame in 2015.
Timeline
- 1896-11-28: Born (Mount Gilead, OH) source
- 1930: Publishes Dance Night source
- 1939: Begins working with Maxwell Perkins (New York, NY) source
- 1942: A Time to Be Born is her first commercial success source
- 1963: National Book Award nominee source
- 1965-11-14: Dies (New York, NY) source
- 1987: Gore Vidal essay revives interest source
- 2015: New York State Writers Hall of Fame source
What Dawn is known for
- 12 novels, 10 plays
- Nominee, National Book Award 1963
- Dance Night (1930)
- A Time to Be Born (1942)
- The Locusts Have No King (1948)
- The Wicked Pavilion (1954)
- The Golden Spur (1962)
Honors and things named for them
- National Book Award nominee, 1963
- Marjorie Peabody Waite Award, 1964
- New York State Writers Hall of Fame, 2015
Ohio places
Where Dawn Powell was born, lived, worked and is remembered, with the ZIP code, town and county pages for each.
- Born: Mount Gilead, Morrow County ZIP 43338 · Mount Gilead · Morrow County
Further reading
Sources
Confidence. Medium: the main facts were confirmed, but some details (often an address or ZIP code) were not.
- Wikipedia: Dawn Powell dates, works, honors, burial