Worth Tuttle Hedden

Worth Tuttle Hedden (born Ella Worth Tuttle; January 10, 1896 – September 14, 1985) was an American writer who released four books between the 1940s and 1950s. Of her works, Wives of High Pasture became available in 1944 while The Other Room came out in 1947. The following year, The Other Room received the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for fiction. After publishing Love is a Wound in 1952, Two and Three Make One was made public in 1956 under her pen name Winifred Woodley. Apart from books, Tuttle wrote for the Encyclopædia Britannica between 1927 and 1928 while also writing for magazines such as The World Tomorrow. She advocated for civil rights. As an English teacher, Tuttle taught at Straight College in the early 1920s and The Windward School during the mid-1930s.

Early life and education Ella Worth Tuttle lived in various parts of North Carolina after her birth occurred in Raleigh, North Carolina, on January 10, 1896. Growing up, Tuttle had multiple siblings and lived with her family members. While in primary school, Tuttle wanted to write for her career. For her post-secondary education, Tuttle went to Virginia and attended junior college. After her studies at Martha Washington College, Tuttle went to Trinity College and the Columbia University School of Journalism. The Trinity Archive released works by Tuttle while she was studying English at Trinity.

Career 1910s to 1930s In between her post-secondary studies, Tuttle began working at the Virginia Bureau of Vocations for Women in 1916 as a secretary. With assistant positions, Tuttle worked for Norman Thomas and Walter B. Pitkin between 1917 and 1918 in New York City. While in New York, Tuttle helped veterans at a branch of the American Red Cross and penned African American short stories. In 1924, Hedden wrote a piece for The Atlantic Monthly. Harper's Magazine, The American Scholar and The World Tomorrow were additional magazines that Hedden's works appeared in. In 1935, Hedden began writing Wives of High Pasture. During this time period, Hedden was working in Westchester, New York as a writer and English teacher for The Windward School.

1940s to 1950s After the release of Wives of High Pasture in 1944, The Other Room was published in 1947. The following year, The Other Room won the Southern Author's Award and the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for fiction in 1948. In 1949, the book was re-released by Bantam Books and set a ten-day average record with over 16,000 sales.

With the sales record, The Other Room was called "the fastest selling book in America" by Bantam. By July 1949, The Other Room had 310,000 sales. In 1952, Hedden released Love is a Wound. Hedden used the name Winifred Woodley to publish her 1956 book titled Two and Three Make One.

Writing process and themes To create her books, Hedden revised her drafts on her typewriter multiple times. With her drafts, Hedden includes notes that she handwrote. The Other Room is about an interracial relationship at a post-secondary institute in New Orleans. Hedden used her time at Dillard to create the basis of her book. She set her book over the course of fifty years between 1884 and 1934. Hedden incorporated the love triangle between her aunt and parents to write Love Is a Wound. The book was originally started as Prism before Hedden renamed it to Love Is a Wound after a work by Edith Rickert. To make Two and Three Makes One, Hedden used notes of what occurred during her life between the mid-1930s and early 1940s. During her marriage, Hedden had three children. On September 14, 1985, Hedden died in Augusta, Maine.

Books The Other Room Wives of High Pasture Love Is a Wound Two and Three Make One:The Story of a Family The Collected Stories of Worth Tuttle Hedden, Volume 1