Hale, Nancy

Hale, Nancy (1908–88) writer; born in Boston, Mass. She studied art at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (1927, 1928) and with her artist father, Phillip L. Hale. She worked as an editor for Vogue (1928–32) and Vanity Fair (1932–33), and was the first woman reporter for the New York Times (1935). A lecturer at Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, Middlebury, Vt. (1957–65), she was based in Charlottesville, Va. She wrote plays, critical essays, a biography of Mary Cassatt, novels, and memoirs, as in A New England Childhood (1958). She is best known for her short stories, as in The Pattern of Perfection (1960).