National Willa Cather Center News

The Willa Cather Foundation is celebrating the 100th anniversary of Willa Cather’s The Song of the Lark with a series of special activities in Red Cloud. Weekend of Willa (WoW) has ample entertainment to offer guests the weekend of August 14-15, including a picnic and night sky viewing on the 612-acre Cather Prairie, guided tours of the Cather historic sites, an art exhibit commemorating the novel’s centenary year, and a special program at the historic Red Cloud Opera House.

On June 5, the Willa Cather Foundation honored its 2015 scholarship recipients. In addition to awarding the Norma Ross Walter and Antonette Willa Skupa Turner scholarships, a new program provided five high school educators with a complimentary registration for the 60th annual Willa Cather Spring Conference.

Each year the Willa Cather Foundation recognizes a volunteer who has been especially dedicated to helping the Foundation meet its mission. Volunteers are vital to the success of the Willa Cather Foundation, and the family of Miriam Mountford recognized the importance of a strong volunteer core when they established the Miriam Mountford Volunteer Award.

When famed novelist Willa Cather received the advice to write about the part of the world she knew best, she turned for inspiration to the Nebraska prairie that impacted her youth. The eighth in an annual series, Prairie Writers' Workshop will provide participants with the rare opportunity to gain valuable writing experience while visiting the town that inspired Nebraska’s Pulitzer Prize-winning author.

The Willa Cather Foundation and University of Nebraska−Lincoln’s Cather Project are examining Willa Cather’s interest in the arts with a special exhibition and performance taking place in conjunction with their 15th International Cather Seminar. An evening celebrating the 100th publication anniversary of Cather's The Song of the Lark and 80th publication anniversary of Lucy Gayheart is set to take place in Lincoln on Thursday, June 11.

The public is invited to attend a free outdoor concert at the Nebraska State Historical Society’s Burlington Depot on Sunday, June 7. The show will feature flamenco classic guitar music performed by Daniel Martinez. This unique performance is part of the Willa Cather Foundation’s 60th annual Spring Conference, which celebrates the 100th publication anniversary of Cather’s third novel, The Song of the Lark. This concert is a homage to the novel’s beloved Moonstone musician Spanish Johnny, a talented folk singer and guitarist.

Nationally recognized historian Richard Norton Smith will deliver a keynote address at the 60th annual Spring Conference June 5-7, 2015, celebrating groundbreaking of the National Willa Cather Center, the Willa Cather Foundation’s 60th year, and the publication centenary of Willa Cather’s third novel, The Song of the Lark. “Fragments of Desire: Cather and the Arts” will focus on the novel and on the arts that influenced Cather’s writing.

The Nebraska Tourism Commission presents the 80 featured stops in the 2015 Nebraska Passport Program. The Passport program encourages travelers to explore Nebraska, collect stamps from participating attractions and earn great prizes.

The 2015 Passport will feature 80 attractions on 10 themed tours.

The first staged reading of a new musical entitled CATHERLAND will be premiering at the Red Cloud Opera House on Saturday, May 2nd, at 7:30 p.m. Playwright Becky Boesen and musician David von Kampen have collaborated to create a marvelous play that takes place in Red Cloud, Nebraska. Becky was inspired to write this play while she was in Red Cloud for a production of What the Wind Taught Me when it toured the Opera House in 2013.