Maude Hutchins
Maude Phelps Hutchins (1899–1992) was born in New York but brought up on Long Island. “After graduation from Yale University where she received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree she pursued a talent for drawing by studying in an art school and in a number of one-man exhibitions in galleries and museums across the country attaining a considerable reputation as a sculptress. Despite her activities along these lines and her role as the mother of three daughters a deep urge for writing persisted and Mrs. Hutchins began publishing short stories poems and plays-for-reading in various literary magazines. Her first novel Georgiana appeared in 1948 and had immediate critical success. Her second novel A Diary of Love was threatened with banning in Chicago but the municipal authorities retreated when the American Civil Liberties Union and leading literary figures came to the book’s defense. Following these novels a collection of short stories and plays-for-reading (Love is a Pie) and a third novel (My Hero) were published by New Directions.