"The air and the earth are curiously mated and intermingled, as if the one were the breath of the other."
- O Pioneers!
willa_header
View All Articles
News image

Spring Conference Registration

The 57th annual Willa Cather Spring Conference and the one-day scholarly symposium preceding it will be focused on Cather the poet, on poetry, and on today's poets from the Great Plains region. Cather's close readers have long noted her sharp presentation of herself as prairie poet with "P...

Read More
News image

Opera House Announces its 10th Season!

The Red Cloud Opera House is pleased to announce its 10th season of events in 2012! Many of the most popular performers since the re-opening of the facility in 2003, as well as some new additions will be highlighted in programs of various genres including music, exhibits, humanities prese...

Read More
News image

"Hard Punishments": Fragments of a Lost Work

At her death in 1947, Willa Cather was working on a story -- or perhaps a novel -- set in medieval Avignon titled "Hard Punishments." By all surviving accounts, the writing Cather had completed was destroyed upon her death, the only known exception being a short fragment owned by the Unive...

Read More
News image

Willa Cather 2012 Reading Challenge

The Willa Cather Foundation is excited to promote continued reading of Cather's novels by encouraging participation in the Willa Cather 2012 Reading Challenge. To take part in the challenge, simply read all twelve of Willa Cather's novels in order of their publication, one per month, from ...

Read More
News image

Spring Conference Call for Papers

Willa Cather, Poet: Making Herself Born The 57th annual Willa Cather Spring Conference and the one-day scholarly symposium preceding it will be held May 31-June 2, 2012 in Red Cloud, Nebraska. The event will be focused on Cather the poet, on poetry, and on today's poets from the Great Plai...

Read More
News image

View "Portraits of the Prairie" Exhibit

It is often called "Catherland"-Webster County, Nebraska, where the quintessential American novelist Willa Cather spent her childhood and found inspiration for her stories of European immigrants on the prairie. Richard Schilling, with his watercolor paintings and ink sketches, conducts us ...

Read More
News image

Give a Gift of Inspiration this Christmas

Willa Cather loved the Holiday season and all that came along with it: delicious food, quality time spent with family and friends, and the giving and receiving of gifts. She treasured it so much that a Christmas scene was an element in many of her stories. Share the joy of this special tim...

Read More
News image

Virtual Housewarming for the Cather Second Home

In anticipation of the grand opening of the Cather Second Home, the Willa Cather Foundation is holding a virtual housewarming party in order to furnish the home with linens, china, cookware, and other basic housewares. Please join us in celebrating this grand occasion by purchasing an item...

Read More
News image

25th Anniversary of the Norma Ross Walter Scholarship Program

Since 1987, the Willa Cather Foundation has awarded 29 scholarships totaling more than $ 140,000 through the Norma Ross Walter Scholarship program. This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Foundation's effort to provide scholarship support to female Nebraska high school graduates who co...

Read More
News image

Cather Inducted into the New York State Writers Hall of Fame

On Friday, April 1, 2011 the Empire State Center for the Book inducted nine authors into the New York State Writers Hall of Fame. Willa Cather was among this prestigious group of seven deceased and two living authors whose writings have made a lasting contribution to literature. Willa Ca...

Read More
News image

From the award-winning documentary Willa Cather—The Road is All

NEW! From the award-winning NET documentary Willa Cather—The Road is All, we are posting some of the best interview quotes from the primary scholars that were interviewed.  Currently featured are four provocative quotes from Pulitzer Prize winning historian, David McCullough, author of ...

Read More
News image

Preserving Our Past, Pioneering Our Future Challenge a Success

The recent Preserving our Past, Pioneering our Future challenge campaign, mounted to provide additional educational and archival programs of the Willa Cather Foundation, has successfully concluded, significantly surpassing its original goal. The challenge was offered by two anonymous donor...

Read More
News image

Friends Issue Challenge to Preserve Our Past, Pioneer Our Future

Two longtime contributors to the Foundation recently joined forces to issue a challenge to Willa Cather devotees. The Willa Cather: Preserving our Past, Pioneering our Future Campaign will provide resources critical to preserving the Cather archives and expanding familiarity with the auth...

Read More
News image

My Willa Cather

The 12th International Seminar focused on Willa Cather's relationship to broader formations of cultural and literary modernism. Held in June, 2009, the Seminar took place in the downtown 'University Center', Chicago, IL, and included events focused on specific literary/cultural sites withi...

Read More
News image

At Willa Cather's Tables: The Cather Foundation Cookbook

Frozen plum pudding, anyone? Perhaps a French onion soup in which "there are nearly a thousand years of history"? Or some Swedish heirloom cookies? These and countless other tantalizing edibles can be found in the brand new cookbook from the Willa Cather Foundation, available here. "Prepar...

Read More
News image

Small Towns Big Dreams

"On my way East I broke my journey at Hastings, in Nebraska, and set off with an open buggy and a fairly good livery team to find the Cuzak farm. At a little past midday, I knew I must be nearing my destination. Set back on a swell of land at my right, I saw a wide farm-house, with a red ...

Read More
News image

Barbara and Kern Wisman of Jerusalem

Barbara and Kern Wisman of Jerusalem, Israel talk about their visit to the Willa Cather Foundation. For more information about Cather tours click here

Read More
News image

Reflections from Prairie Writers' Workshop by Timothy Schaffert

Willa Cather taught in a writers' workshop in  1922, at Middlebury College, while working on  her novel A Lost Lady. Upon the completion of her five-session course, her students saluted her with a witless poem: "Oh Miss Cather, when we gather/ For your talks so wise and clear/ Now you'r...

Read More
News image

“Not Stories At All, But Life Itself”

The Right Reverend Frank T. Griswold, XXV Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, addresses the Cather Spring Conference. "It would not be an exaggeration to say that Willa Cather is partly responsible for my choosing the path I have chosen." A singularly memorable event during the 2009 ...

Read More
News image

Willa Cather Foundation Receives Award

The website for the Willa Cather Foundation received a Merit Certificate for excellence from the Lincoln, Nebraska chapter of the American Marketing Association at its annual Prism Awards luncheon in May 2009. The award recognizes the website's striking design and strong functionality, an...

Read More
Share/Save/Bookmark