This is the twenty-fourth post in a series
highlighting the best gay and lesbian authors from the 20th century (with a few
before and after that period) who have recorded in fiction, and nonfiction, the
history of gay people telling what life is, and was, during an important time of
history.

Alma
Routsong (26 November 1924 - 4 October 1996) was an American novelist
best known for her lesbian fiction, published under the pen name Isabel
Miller.


 Biography
Alma Routsong was born in Traverse City, Michigan 26 November 1924, the
daughter of Carl and Esther Miller Routsong. During World War II she
served in the WAVES, training at the Farragut, Idaho Naval Training
Center[2] and then working as a hospital apprentice. She graduated from
Michigan State University in 1949 with a degree in art.

Routsong's first two novels were published under her own name,
with the later works under the pen name, a combination of an anagram of
"Lesbia" and her mother's maiden name. Between 1968 and 1971 she worked
as an editor at Columbia University. From the mid-1970s until 1986 she
was a proofreader for Time Magazine
Routsong was an officer in the New York chapter of Daughters of Bilitis and was arrested during a DOB police raid.[4]
Alma Routsong died in Poughkeepsie, New York on 4 October 1996.

Patience
and Sarah is a 1969 historical fiction novel with strong lesbian themes
by Alma Routsong, using the pen name Isabel Miller. It was originally
self-published under the title A Place For Us and eventually found a
publisher as Patience and Sarah in 1971.

Routsong's novel is based on a real-life painter named Mary Ann
Willson who lived with her companion Miss Brundage as a "farmerette" in
the early 19th century in Greene County, New York. Routsong said she
came upon Willson's work in a folk art museum in Cooperstown and was
inspired to write the story after reading the description of Willson and
Brundage. It tells the story of two women in Connecticut in 1816 who
fall in love and decide to leave their homes to buy a farm in another
state or territory and live in a Boston marriage. The story addresses
the limited opportunities and roles of women in early America, gender
expression, and the interpretation of religion in everyday life.

 Works
Routsong, Alma (1953). A Gradual Joy. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.
Routsong, Alma (1959). Round Shape. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.
Miller, Isabel (1969). A Place for Us. New York: Bleecker Street Press.
republished as Miller, Isabel (1971). Patience and Sarah. New York:
McGraw-Hill.
Miller, Isabel (1986). The Love of Good Women. Tallahassee, FL: Naiad Press.
Miller, Isabel (1991). Side by Side. Tallahassee, FL: Naiad Press.
Miller, Isabel (1993). A Dooryard Full of Flowers: and Other Short Pieces. Tallahassee, FL: Naiad Press.
Miller, Isabel (1996). Laurel. Tallahassee, FL: Naiad Press.

 Awards and honors
Friends of American Writers award (1954, for A Gradual Joy)
Bread Loaf Writers' Conference Fellow (1957, for Round Shape)
American Library Association Gay Book Award (1971, for Patience and Sarah)