author
Zoé Anderson Norris
A bold Gilded Age journalist and fiction writer, she built a career out of telling lively, often unsentimental stories about city life. She is especially remembered for founding The East Side, a magazine that focused on poor immigrant communities in New York.
1 Audiobook
The Way of the Wind
by Zoé Anderson Norris
About the author
Born in Kentucky in 1860, Zoé Anderson Norris became a journalist, novelist, short story writer, and publisher at a time when few women were able to shape public conversations so directly. Her work moved through Kentucky, Kansas, and finally New York, where she became known for her sharp eye, strong opinions, and colorful public presence.
Norris wrote fiction as well as journalism, and much of her work drew on the struggles and ambitions of everyday people. She is most closely associated with The East Side, the bimonthly magazine she published from 1909 until 1914, which paid attention to immigrants and poor New Yorkers who were often ignored by more polished magazines of the day.
She died in 1914, but her reputation has continued to grow as historians have revisited writers who challenged the limits placed on women in publishing and public life. Today, she stands out as an energetic, unconventional voice from turn-of-the-century America.