Herbert Kubly

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Herbert Oswald Nicholas Kubly (26 April 1915 – 7 August 1996)[1] was an American author and playwright. He received the National Book Award for Nonfiction in 1956 for his first book, American in Italy.

Contents

[edit] Biography

"Nick" Kubly was born and raised on a farm in the Swiss American community of New Glarus, Wisconsin. He received a bachelor's degree from the University of Wisconsin School of Journalism in 1937. His first professional work as a journalist was for the Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph.[2] He later wrote for the New York Herald Tribune.[3]

His first play, Men to the Sea, was produced on Broadway in 1944.[4] Between 1945 and 1947 he served as the music critic for Time magazine.[5][6]

In 1950 Kubly became an associate professor of speech at the University of Illinois,[7] but he left that position to accept a Fulbright grant to Italy, where he spent 18 months in 1950–1951.[8][9] He taught creative writing at San Francisco State College in the 1960s. From 1969 to 1984, he was an English professor and writer-in-residence at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside.[10]

He married Emily Lee Hill in 1989.[11] He died in New Glarus at age 81.[12]

[edit] Books

  • American in Italy - 1955
  • Easter in Sicily - 1956
  • Varieties of Love (stories) - 1958
  • Italy (Life World Library) - 1961
  • The Whistling Zone (novel) - 1963
  • At Large (autobiographical) - 1964
  • Switzerland (Life World Library) - 1964
  • Gods and Heroes - 1969
  • The Duchess of Glover (novel) - 1975
  • Native's Return - 1981
  • The Parkside Stories - 1985

[edit] Plays

  • Men to the Sea - 1944
The story concerns the wives of five sailors, who live at a boarding house in Brooklyn, New York while their husbands are away at sea.
  • Inherit the Wind, with Waldemar Hansen - 1946
A psychological drama set in Philadelphia in 1903. A production opened in London circa 1948.[13] (Not the play of the same name by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee.)
  • Punch and Judy - 1948
About the United Nations and the possibility of world organization.
  • The Cocoon - 1954
Produced in London.
  • Beautiful Dreamer - 1956
A comedy about a striptease artist trying to escape the police.
  • Virus - 1973
Produced at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside[14]

[edit] Further reading

  • Current Biography Yearbook. 1959 edition. H.W. Wilson Co., 1959.
  • Contemporary Authors. Volumes 5-8, 1st revision. Gale Research, 1969.
  • Who Was Who in America. Volume 12, 1996-1998. Marquis Who's Who, 1998.

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  1. ^ Ancestry.com. Social Security Death Index [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: The Generations Network, Inc., 2007.
  2. ^ "In the Alumni World", The Wisconsin Alumnus, November 1937, p. 84.
  3. ^ "Trailing the Badgers", The Wisconsin Alumnus, February 1943, p. 176.
  4. ^ Internet Broadway Database.
  5. ^ "Trailing the Badgers", The Wisconsin Alumnus, June 15, 1945, p. 21.
  6. ^ "Writer Kubly Dies", Wisconsin State Journal, August 9, 1996, p. 1-B.
  7. ^ "With the Classes", Wisconsin Alumnus, December 1949, p. 30.
  8. ^ Port of New York, passenger list of the S.S. Constitution, December 24, 1951, list 3.
  9. ^ "Badger Bookshelf", Wisconsin Alumnus, April 15, 1956, p. 39.
  10. ^ "Herbert Kubly Appointed English Professor at Parkside", Wisconsin Alumnus, February 1968, p. 22–23.
  11. ^ Ancestry.com. Wisconsin Marriages, 1973-1997 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: The Generations Network, Inc., 2005.
  12. ^ "Herb Kubly, 81; Wrote About Italy", The New York Times, August 13, 1996, p. B6.
  13. ^ "Playwright Scores Again", The Wisconsin Alumnus, February 1948, p. 33.
  14. ^ 1984 Notable Wisconsin Authors, Wisconsin Library Association.