National Willa Cather Center News

Today is National Book Lovers Day and a fine day to celebrate a love of books and reading, as Willa Cather always did—and that the Willa Cather Foundation continues to do in her name. "Cather and the Readerly Imagination" was the theme of our 69th Annual Willa Cather Spring Conference but we celebrate Willa Cather's words every day as they are the reason for our mission—which you can support in many ways, including a browse in our National Willa Cather Center Bookstore (in person or online!).

The National Willa Cather Center’s Collections and Archives in Red Cloud, Nebraska has benefited from a National Endowment for the Humanities grant that enabled the purchase of storage furnishings and tools recommended by a 2023 Collections Assessment Report. 

This summer, before the exterior painting began at the Cather Second Home Guest House, we turned to the expert paint analysis provided by David Arbogast of Davenport, Iowa. David has conducted paint analysis at some of our other historic sites in recent years, including: the Burlington Depot, Pavelka Farmstead, and the Willa Cather Childhood Home (and in the early 1990s at the Miner House before it was donated to the Willa Cather Foundation by Nancy and Bernie Picchi).

Are you interested in serving on the Board of Governors of the Willa Cather Foundation? For the fiscal year of board service beginning January 1, 2025, the Foundation is accepting applications for new members of the Board. Applications are due by September 5.

Our visitor services coordinator and expert guide, Nick Powers, recently completed the Nebraska Master Naturalist Program, a week-long course of classes and activities that provides certification for its conservation and education volunteers. Classes ranged from plants and animals, to ecosystems, environmental education, and citizen science. Nick gained deeper knowledge of the different plants and animals of Nebraska, as well as conservation efforts in the state.

Red Cloud's historic Burlington Depot, in service for more than sixty years before it was decommissioned by the railroad, connected Red Cloud to the larger world. The technologies and processes that enabled such a connection were managed by dozens of men (and a handful of women) under the watchful eye of the station master. We hope the new interpretation at the Depot will give visitors a glimpse of daily life at the station.

The Humanities Internship at the National Willa Cather Center offers an experiential learning opportunity for an advanced undergraduate (completed at least forty credit hours) or a graduate student in the humanities at the University of Nebraska (UNL, UNK, or UNO). It is funded through a collaboration between the University of Nebraska and the National Willa Cather Center.

The National Willa Cather Center is pleased to announce members of the second cohort of writers of the Willa Cather Writers Residency in Red Cloud, Nebraska. The program will be held October 13-27, 2024. The Willa Cather Residency aims to inspire new work by emergent writers. For more about the Willa Cather Residency, click HERE.

 

It was a beautiful, breezy afternoon on June 8 for our Willa Cather Childhood Home Rededication and Ribbon Cutting! Willa Cather Foundation leadership, project partners and supporters, Nebraska State Poet Matt Mason, and Nebraska Youth Poet Laureate Miranda Davis participated in a dedication and ribbon-cutting at the Willa Cather Childhood Home.