William Motter Inge was born in Independence, Kansas. He studied speech and drama at the University of Kansas and graduated in 1935. He received his Master's degree from George Peabody College at Nashville, Tennessee in 1938. He worked as a teacher, laborer, and theater critic. He is best known as a playwright and novelist. In his lifetime he earned both a Pulitzer Prize for Picnic and an Academy Award for the screenplay to the motion picture Splendor in the Grass. His later works did not achieve this same acclaim and this lack of notice is believed to have played a factor in his suicide in 1973 at the age of 60.

Picnic, originally titled "Front Porch," opened in New York City, New York at the Music Box Theatre on February 19, 1953. It ran for a total of 477 performances before closing April 10, 1954. The production won Tony Awards for Best Director (Joshua Logan) and Best Stage Techician (John Davis). Paul Newman and Eileen Heckart won Theatre World Awards for their performances. Picnic and Inge won the 1953 Pulizer Prize for Drama.

Columbia Pictures produced a movie version of the play in 1955, released in movie theaters in 1956. The movie received 6 Academy Award nominations and won two for Art Direction and Editing. Inge wrote and published in 1962 what he called a reworked version of Picnic, called Summer Brave, which did not see the same success as the original play. Joshua Logan, the original director, oversaw a musical adaptation of Picnic called Hot September in the mid-1960s.

The story is set in a small Kansas town and includes a cast of several female characters, including Flo Owens and her daughters Madge and Mille; a schoolteacher, Rosemary, who lives with the Owens; and Helen, who is a next door neighbor. Male drifter Hal comes to town to visit his friend Alan, who is dating Madge. In Picnic, Madge follows Hal when he must flee the town; in Summer Brave, Madge does not leave with Hal.

[Information pulled from Cloud Hill Books collection inventory and collection materials.]