Herbert Oswald Nicholas Kubly (April 26, 1915 – August 7, 1996)Ancestry.com. Social Security Death Index [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: The Generations Network, Inc., 2007. was an American author and playwright. For his first book, American in Italy, he won the 1956 U.S. National Book Award for Nonfiction."National Book Awards – 1956" . National Book Foundation. Retrieved 2012-03-19.
Biography 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."In the Alumni World ", The Wisconsin Alumnus, November 1937, p. 84. He later wrote for the New York Herald Tribune."Trailing the Badgers ", The Wisconsin Alumnus, February 1943, p. 176.
His first play, Men to the Sea, was produced on Broadway in 1944.Internet Broadway Database . Between 1945 and 1947 he served as the music critic for Time magazine."Trailing the Badgers ", The Wisconsin Alumnus, June 15, 1945, p. 21."Writer Kubly Dies", Wisconsin State Journal, August 9, 1996, p. 1-B.
In 1950 Kubly became an associate professor of speech at the University of Illinois,"With the Classes ", Wisconsin Alumnus, December 1949, p. 30. but he left that position to accept a Fulbright grant to Italy, where he spent 18 months in 1950–1951.Port of New York, passenger list of the S.S. Constitution, December 24, 1951, list 3."Badger Bookshelf ", Wisconsin Alumnus, April 15, 1956, p. 39. 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. "Herbert Kubly Appointed English Professor at Parkside ", Wisconsin Alumnus, February 1968, p. 22–23.
He married Emily Lee Hill in 1989.Ancestry.com. Wisconsin Marriages, 1973-1997 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: The Generations Network, Inc., 2005. He died in New Glarus at age 81."Herb Kubly, 81; Wrote About Italy", The New York Times, August 13, 1996, p. B6.
Legacy The University of Wisconsin–Parkside English Department established the Herbert Kubly Writing Award in 1996 in Kubly's memory.
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
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."Playwright Scores Again ", The Wisconsin Alumnus, February 1948, p. 33. (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–Parkside1984 Notable Wisconsin Authors , Wisconsin Library Association.
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.
References
External links Herbert Kubly, "101 Years of Yodeling", Time. Herbert Kubly, "Discovering America", Wisconsin Alumnus.