National Willa Cather Center News

The Willa Cather Foundation is delighted to announce their membership in the Great Plains Ecotourism Coalition, beginning November 7. The coalition, a project of the Center for Great Plains Studies at the University of Nebraska, is committed to promoting environmental conservation and nature-based tourism throughout the Great Plains.

The Willa Cather Foundation has recently received a fascinating letter as an addition to our collection of Cather artifacts. The letter, written by "(Miss) Willa Sibert Cather," is addressed to "Mrs. Cleary," a woman we know as Kate M. Cleary, a fellow Nebraska writer. Mrs. Cleary, we surmise from the letter, had written to praise Cather's story "The Sculptor's Funeral," which had appeared in a 1905 issue of McClure's magazine.

The Willa Cather Foundation is offering an exceptional package for Red Cloud Weekend Retreat! This offer includes: two tickets to the Red Cloud Opera House for a Saturday evening cabaret show with Mary Carrick; Saturday night lodging at the historic Cather Second Home; and two guided tours of the Cather historic sites. The community of Red Cloud was a setting in some of Willa Cather's most beloved novels, such as My Ántonia, O Pioneers!, and The Song of the Lark. Join us on Saturday, November 8th and visit one of the most famous villages in American literature.

The Willa Cather Foundation is pleased to announce it has raised $5.79 million in gifts and pledges to establish the National Willa Cather Center at Red Cloud, fulfilling a challenge grant deadline of June 30, 2014 from the Peter Kiewit Foundation of Omaha, Nebraska, as well as meeting a grant requirement of the Robert B. Daugherty Foundation. "We are so grateful to the Peter Kiewit Foundation and Robert B.

The Cather Project of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln announces the availability of two Research Grants for visiting scholars. These grants provide financial support for scholars to travel to and reside in Lincoln, NE, for four consecutive weeks, in order to conduct research on Willa Cather using Cather resources in Nebraska and at UNL.

The madcap comedy will be performed on Saturday, Oct. 11 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets for the show can be purchased by calling the Red Cloud Opera House at (402) 746-2641 or by visiting www.WillaCather.org. Advanced tickets are $15 and tickets purchased the day of the show are $18.

Currently housed in the Red Cloud Opera House Gallery are the original watercolors and drawings of artist, Scott Kirby. These pieces depict the beauty and desolateness of the prairie in Kirby's unique impressionist style. What Willa Cather was able to do with her romantic literary descriptions of the prairie Kirby has captured on canvas with his vivid use of color, line, and perspective.