Norma Cole is best known for her play And the Tide Shall Cover the Earth based on her novel, Final Tide. Born in South Dakota in 1925, she moved to Michigan and taught school for many years while she raised a family. Once her children were grown, Cole decided to run away from home to pursue her lifelong dream of writing a novel and having it published. She settled in Kentucky, moving a log cabin from its original site in the Ohio River Valley to a wooded and solitary mountain outside of Monticello where she lived and worked for many years. Cole accomplished her goal, finishing and, after a great deal of work, publishing Final Tide not too many years after moving. Not content with one novel, she went on to write other books and plays before she passed away in July 1999.
