For the 150th anniversary of Willa Cather’s birth, Fine Books & Collections magazine asked me to write about some of the scholarship and celebrations marking the occasion. The story’s not available online, alas, but you can order the issue. Here’s a taste of the article:
“A century and a half after her birth, Willa Cather (1873-1947) remains closely associated with the Great Plains. The prairie town of Red Cloud, Nebraska inspired some of her personal novels including O Pioneers! and My Ántonia. ‘The land belongs to the future,’ said one of the characters at the end of O Pioneers! ‘We come and go, but the land is always here.’ Cather’s interest in the land, and its people, extended to almost every region of United States. She was a Nebraskan, but also a Virginian and a New Yorker, not to mention a world traveler.”
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