A Writer Herself

American Public Media puts out a great daily e-newsletter called The Writer’s Almanac. (The radio program of the same name is hosted by Garrison Keillor.) Today’s edition of the newsletter has a poem by Joseph Mills (you can click through to hear a reading) and a run-down of notable literary birthdays, including that of Zelda Fitzgerald. Born in Montgomery, Alabama on July 24, 1900, she was the wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald and the inspiration for one of the most recognizable female characters in the history of American fiction: Daisy Buchanan. 

Zelda was also, in fact, quite a writer herself. She wrote one novel, Save Me the Waltz (1932), but she did some of her best writing in her letters: 

Zelda wrote a letter to his family in White Bear, Minnesota after F. Scott Fitzgerald died in 1940: “So many years have passed since summers lost themselves in the green valley of White Bear and time floated immutable and eternal above the blue sleek surface of the lake. … Always we hoped to some day be able to offer testimonial to the courtesies that were extended us; from so many kind hearts, in so many lonesome places. … Now that [Scott] won’t be coming east again with his pockets full of promises and his notebooks full of schemes and new refurbished hope, life doesn’t offer as happy a vista. … Life has a way of closing its books as soon as one’s category is fulfilled; and I suppose the time has come. … If when things have resolved themselves more tangibly, I want to know how to find my way about the bread-line, I will write you — Don’t forget me.”