author
Dana Gatlin
1884–1940
A journalist, critic, and novelist from Kansas, this early 20th-century writer moved to New York and spent years reviewing books for the New York Sun. Her best-known novel, Missy, captures the emotional world of a young girl with warmth and close observation.
1 Audiobook
Missy
by Dana Gatlin
About the author
Born in 1884, Dana Gatlin was an American writer whose career included journalism, literary criticism, fiction, and later spiritual writing. Records gathered by literary and archival sources connect her with Kansas and identify her as the author of Missy, the work most often associated with her today.
An obituary preserved by TruthUnity says she went to New York in 1909 and for several years served as the New York Sun's literary critic. That same source and library records show that she also published fiction and articles across the 1910s and beyond, building a career that moved between newspaper work and creative writing.
Gatlin died in 1940. Although she is not widely known now, her work still survives through digital libraries and archives, where Missy and other writings continue to give readers a glimpse of her clear, thoughtful voice.