UW-Madison alumna featured on 2008 U.S. postage stamp

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, a 1918 graduate of the University of Wisconsin–Madison, will be featured on a new stamp for the U.S. Postal Service’s 2008 Commemorative Stamp Program.

The 2008 stamp program recognizes a range of American subjects, including holidays, 20th century movie icons, literary figures, and flags of U.S. states and territories.

Rawlings is best known for her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, “The Yearling,” and her memoir, “Cross Creek.” At UW–Madison, Rawlings majored in English, was a Phi Beta Kappa member and wrote for campus literary magazines. She was featured on the June 1949 cover of the Wisconsin Alumni Association’s magazine, then known as “Wisconsin Alumnus.” Rawlings died in 1953.

The stamp honoring Rawlings will be commemorated on Feb. 21 at the site of her Cross Creek, Fla., home. Her work includes a series of short stories, novels and nonfiction works about life in the Florida backwoods.

Art director Carl Herrman of Carlsbad, Calif., worked with award-winning artist Michael Deas of Brooklyn Heights, N.Y., to create a portrait of the novelist with a background depicting a fawn at a watering hole in the Florida scrub country. The rows of spots on the male fawn are consistent with the description in “The Yearling.”