Willa Cather in Fine Books & Collections

Willa Cather, the National Willa Cather Center, and some of our archival holdings are featured in an article by Jennifer Howard. You can read “Mapping Willa Cather” in the Summer 2023 issue of Fine Books & Collections and order the magazine from their website.

A fine and comprehensive overview of the many aspects of Willa Cather—both in Nebraska and elsewhere—the article includes references to the extensive historic offerings, and projects, happening in Red Cloud and the 150 celebrations around the country this year. Peppered with lively anecdotes and information, interviews were conducted with Ashley Olson and Tracy Tucker. Andy Jewell, Emily Rau, and Melissa Homestead were interviewed about the Cather Archive project at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The statue installation and Cather birthplace fundraiser and purchase in Gore, Virginia were also mentioned. [The birthplace listing was also profiled by Fine Books & Collections in April.]

The article begins: "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.

'For so long she’s been pigeonholed as a Plains writer, and she’s so much more than that,' said Ashley Olson, executive director of the National Willa Cather Center in Red Cloud, Nebraska.".