These response posts assume you have read the story under discussion, so there are often spoilers . . . such is the case with this post. Leslie dies! I did not see that coming. Did you? Perhaps I didn’t see… Read More ›
Willa Cather
Join me at the First Ever Virtual Willa Cather Spring Conference!
The annual Spring Willa Cather Conference has been held in Red Cloud, Nebraska for over sixty years. Rather than cancel the conference due to the Covid-19 pandemic, this year’s 65th Willa Cather Spring Conference will be held virtually. Conference organizers… Read More ›
May 2020 Reminder for The Willa Cather Short Story Project
It’s the second Wednesday of the month, which means it’s time for another Willa Cather Short Story Project reminder post! Our story this month is “The Best Years.” This is the second of three stories that make up Cather’s posthumously… Read More ›
“The Old Beauty” Response. The Willa Cather Short Story Project
I read this story over the weekend at our old house, which is for sale. We have a buyer and a closing scheduled for May, knock on wood. I check on the house regularly and now that its getting warmer,… Read More ›
April 2020 Reminder for the Willa Cather Short Story Project
Willa Cather died on April 24, 1947. Our story this month is “The Old Beauty” from The Old Beauty and Others, which was published posthumously on September 13, 1948. “The Old Beauty” is the first of three short stories in… Read More ›
Response to “Two Friends.” The Willa Cather Short Story Project
Just having read “Old Mrs. Harris,” I couldn’t help think that the narrator of this story is Vickie Templeton from that story. When she describes the freedom of summer — “nights of full liberty and perfect idleness…there was no school,… Read More ›
March 2020 Reminder. The Willa Cather Short Story Project
Our story for March is “Two Friends,” the final story in Cather’s 1932 collection, Obscure Destinies. When Willa Cather sent “Two Friends” to her publisher, Alfred Knopf, she wrote that she thought it the best short story she’d ever written…. Read More ›
Response to “Old Mrs. Harris.” The Willa Cather Short Story Project
What an amazing short story! For those of you who haven’t yet read “Old Mrs. Harris,” it’s primarily about three generations of women in the Templeton family — the grandmother, Mrs. Harris; her daughter, Victoria; and her granddaughter, Vickie —… Read More ›
The World of Willa Cather by Mildred R. Bennett
I scored me some Willa Cather studies at Northshire Bookstore in Manchester, Vermont last night! They sell mainly new books but also have a wonderfully curated used section. This is a 1974 printing of the 1961 Bison Books edition of… Read More ›
February 2020 Reminder: The Willa Cather Short Story Project
Our story for February is one of Cather’s most beloved stories, “Old Mrs. Harris.”