Event Archives

Join us for the finale of the 71st Annual Willa Cather Spring Conference! Adapted by Brenda Withers from Cather's short story “The Bohemian Girl,” this unique and special production features actors Jonathan Fielding and Brenda Withers from the Harbor Stage Company. 

We are pleased to welcome author Rebecca Romney! Her lecture on "Willa Cather, the Archival Chain, and the Making of a Literary Legacy" considers the effects of archival collections on the writing of literary history, with special emphasis on Cather’s posthumous legacy. Such collections are not formed accidentally. They exist through the efforts of individual people, archival agents who save material, become its long-term caretakers, and make it accessible for study. The decisions of archival agents, big and small, can cause ripple effects across the stories we tell.

Mark your calendars for the 71st Annual Willa Cather Spring Conference! Cather's work in dialogue with America 250 present opportunities to consider how we remember people—and nations.

The National Willa Cather Center invites you to get a sneak peek of our newest exhibition, All Aboard: West-Bound Trains in American Culture, at the historic Burlington Depot. Be among the first to experience this immersive reinterpretation of the railway that first opened in 1878.

The National Willa Cather Center invites you to get a sneak peek of our newest exhibition, All Aboard: West-Bound Trains in American Culture, at the historic Burlington Depot. Be among the first to experience this immersive reinterpretation of the railway that first opened in 1878.

Commemorate National Poetry Month and meet two emerging poets of the Great Plains! Join Tyler Jacobs and Samuel Burt for readings of their latest work, including poems from Jacobs’ new book The Weight of Drought, and engage in a discussion with the authors about place-based poetry, their creative processes, and building careers as writers in the 21st century. 

You won’t want to miss a night of beautiful and thought-provoking poetry! This event is free with registration.  

Join us for an evening of art, poetry, and community! Part of her grassroots Homegrown arts series, 2025-2029 Nebraska State Poet Jewel Rodgers makes her first appearance in Red Cloud to read poems and meet folks in south central Nebraska. Area artists, musicians, and writers are also invited to come and share their own work with others who love fine art and the written word.

Explore 150 years of music through Kirby's live piano performances of some of America's greats - including Stephen Foster, John Philip Sousa, and the ragtime of Scott Joplin! The music and narratives are accompanied by a video featuring nostalgic archival images from America's past, as well as a special artistic features about Red Cloud!

Scott Kirby's drawings and watercolor paintings are inspired by the American Great Plains. Referred to as an “accidental artist” by Sandpoint Magazine, Kirby began making art at the age of forty. Although the attempts to capture these mostly imagined visions are quite intentional, the origins of Kirby's transition from music to art was, in a way, “accidental,” or unexpected, and his scenes are rooted in a long relationship with the towns and landscapes of the American grasslands.

Deepen your understanding of one of Willa Cather’s most celebrated novels! In The Bright Edges of the World, Garrett Peck explores how Cather’s travels to the Southwest inspired her writing. She visited the Southwest six times between 1912 and 1926, and from these journeys came three novels, the last of which was Death Comes for the Archbishop.