Willa Cather

Willa Cather (1873-1947) was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American author best known for her portrayals of frontier life on the American Great Plains in the late 19th century, exemplified by her novels O Pioneers! and My Ántonia. In addition, she also wrote several novels expressing her lament concerning the demise of the frontier and the spread of a culture of convention and materialism in the 1920s.

Life

Cather was born on a farm in Virginia in 1873 and moved to Nebraska with her family when she was 10 years old. After farming for one year, the family moved to Red Cloud where her father engaged in real estate work.

Several years later, in 1890, Willa moved to Lincoln where she attended a prep school prior to entering college at the University of Nebraska, from which she graduated in 1895.

After graduation, she moved to Pittsburgh where she worked on a women's magazine (the Home Monthly), leaving that job to teach English and Latin in high school for several years. Meanwhile, in 1903 she published her first volume of poetry (April Twilights) and, in 1905, a collection of short stories (The Troll Garden). From there, she went to New York City where she wrote for McClures magazine, eventually becoming its managing editor.