Willa Cather 1873-1947

I'm thrilled to have been invited to participate in a celebration next November of Willa Cather, a Cos Club member of very short duration (ooohhh! A mystery!). Sarah Gordon has pulled together wonderful letters from the newest published collection, one that has caused quite a stir for its confirmation of Cather's sexual preference, something she wasn't eager to reveal. Looks a bit like her estate couldn't resist making money off the announcement. Regardless... this evening will be a loving tribute to an exquisite writer, a compassionate woman, and courageous and independent citizen of the world. I'll spend this summer reading her novels, starting with the last, DEATH COMES FOR THE ARCHBISHOP (1927). The Saturday Review calls it "a masterly quiet narrative." The desciptions of the Western American landscape are so vivid, I can smell the pinon logs burning and see the white-washed pueblos shining in the sun. I particularly like this thought: (p 95, Modern Library edition) "The great tables of granite set down in an empty plain were inconceivable without their attendant clouds, which were a part of them, as the smoke is part of the censer, or the foam of the wave."