Gwen Pharis Ringwood (1910-1984) was an early prairie Canadian playwright. Her writing also included short stories, poems, novels, radio dramas, musicals, and children's plays. When she was young, her family moved from Washington State to Alberta, which became her home. She pioneered in community and educational theatre in western Canada; her one-act folk tragedy, "Still Stands the House" (1938), cemented her reputation. "The Collected Plays of Gwen Pharis Ringwood" (1982 Borealis).

New Canadian Drama - Volume 2, edited by Patrick B. O´Neill. "Through a skillful combination of comedy and pathos, mime and music, poetry and prose, Mirage chronicles seventy-five years of Saskatchewan life. The three generations of Rylands experience two World Wars, drought and Depression, Tommy Douglas and John Diefenbaker against the continuing claim of their ancestral farm." "Pogie has none of the bitterness one might expect to find in a look at the breakdown of family life wrought by chronic unemployment. Heide has captured the flavour of Maritime humour and mounted it in a cabaret display case." "The Dollar Woman carries us further back in time to the late nineteenth century, but the disturbing ulcer on our history which it reveals forces the audience to reconsider its current attitudes to social welfare in general ... the masterful characterization, the rich and vigorous dialogue, and the sustained theatrical awareness of Nowlan and Learning´s script make The Dollar Woman come alive on stage."