Willa Cather Celebration Weekend

Please join us in New Hampshire this fall for “Willa Cather’s Spirit Lives On," a series of events held on Friday, Oct. 19 and Saturday, Oct. 20, as a national celebration of the 100th anniversary of My Ántonia. The Willa Cather Foundation's Ashley Olson, executive director, and Tracy Tucker, education director, are featured speakers during the weekend, which also includes tours of local Cather sites, readings, a piano recital, a Cather-themed dinner, and the composer Tom Dunn's musical play Kindness and Cruelty: Willa Cather in Jaffrey.

Located at the foot of Mount Monadnock, Jaffrey was, Cather wrote in a letter, the place “where I have done most of my best work” and where she is buried today. Thank you to the event's organizers: Jaffrey Historical Society, the Village Improvement Society, the Jaffrey Library, Jaffrey Civic Center, Jaffrey Chamber of Commerce, the First Church in Jaffrey, and the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough. 

Registration for the weekend will sell out and is strictly limited to 140 participants! 
Online registration will open on Monday, August 6 at: www.jaffreychamber.com

Schedule of Events:

Friday Evening, October 19, 2018

Welcoming Reception
Jaffrey Civic Center, 40 Main Street
Meet Ashley Olson, executive director, and Tracy Tucker, education director, honored Guests from the National Willa Cather Center in Red Cloud, Nebraska

Saturday, October 20, 2018

Morning Tours of Cather Sites

Assemble at the 1775 Jaffrey Meetinghouse to walk to:

• Cather’s Gravesite at Old Burying Ground 
• Cather Exhibit at Melville Academy Museum 
• Visit to High Mowing, where Cather wrote My Ántonia

Box Lunch Provided by the Shattuck Grill

Presentation: "Willa Cather's Spirit Lives On!"
Jaffrey Meeting House
Ashley Olson and Tracy Tucker of the National Willa Cather Center will talk about their organization and its role in preserving and promoting Cather's legacy

Piano Recital: "How Willa Cather Played Music Into Her Writing"
First Church in Jaffrey
Join noted pianist Virginia Erskine as she explores the music of Cather's literature

Dinner
Shattuck Golf Club,
A Cather-themed dinner on the site of the former Shattuck Inn

Theater: Kindness and Cruelty: Willa Cather in Jaffrey, A Musical Play 
Jaffrey Meetinghouse