Gladys Fornell

Gladys Fornell (1904 - 1982) was the writer of several successful plays, including an adaptation of “The Emperor's New Clothes” and “Puss in Boots,” both performed off-Broadway. Fornell was a lifelong writer and editor, first formally trained at the University of Minnesota. She went on to work with the Colorado Writers' Conference in 1948 and the artists’ community, Yaddo.^[1] She worked for the Princeton University Press for several years and spent most of her life in New York City.

Fornell was originally a fiction writer, showing promise with her unpublished novel, "Montel," but after years of rejection, tried her hand at writing plays.^[2] She wrote several musicals in the 1950s and 1960s with the composer Richard d’Honau. Additionally, she wrote a family history entitled “Nils Fornell Wisconsin Pioneer.” She spent the end of her life in Illinois, where she died in 1982.

• Gladys Fornell Papers at Newberry Library.