We are very pleased that Andy Jewell, editor of the Willa Cather Archive and co-editor of the new Selected Letters of Willa Cather, will join us on NCompass Live on Wednesday, June 5, 2013. He will discuss the story behind the writing and publishing of O Pioneers!, the 2013 One Book, One Nebraska selection that is also celebrating its 100th anniversary. The book, which Cather called her second first novel, emerged at a critical period in Cather’s life. In 1912, she had just left her job at McClure’s Magazine and ventured to Arizona to visit her brother. Her experiences there–and the confidence she regained–made her feel that her mind had been freshly washed and ironed, and were ready for a new life. With O Pioneers! she attempted a new kind of writing, something far afield from the Boston and London environs of her first novel, Alexander’s Bridge. With this new style, as she told her friend, she hit the home pasture. Jewell’s talk will draw heavily on Cather’s biography and, especially, her letters of the period to provide a behind-the-scenes look into the creation of O Pioneers!. In this ninth year of One Book One Nebraska, Nebraska libraries and other literary and cultural organizations continue to plan activities and events to encourage all Nebraskans to read and discuss the same book. Join us to hear more about this statewide reading promotion activity, sponsored by the Nebraska Library Commission and the Nebraska Center for the Book. NCompass Live - June 5, 2013. http://nlc.nebraska.gov/ncompasslive/

1. O Pioneers!
WILLA CATHER’S SECOND “FIRST NOVEL”
Andrew Jewell
University of Nebraska-Lincoln

2. Willa Cather, 1882
shortly before moving to Nebraska

3. Willa Cather, about age 16

4. Mary Miner, Willa Cather, and Douglass Cather

5. Willa Cather as a student at the University of Nebraska, about 1

6. University of Nebraska campus and downtown Lincoln
in the late 19th century

7. Willa Cather in
1895, when she
graduated from the
University of

8. Willa Cather
Pittsburgh, 1890s

9. Willa Cather
June 1902

10. Willa Cather
Pittsburgh, early 1900s

11. Willa Cather
New York, about 1910

13. First edition of O Pioneers!, 1913

15. Sarah Orne Jewett
Dedication in O Pioneers! to the writer Sarah
Orne Jewett

16. The Selected Letters of
Willa Cather
Andrew Jewell and Janis Stout
Edited by
K N O P F

17. Janis Stout

20. Willa Cather
New Mexico, 1915

21. Willa Cather when she
was writing My Ántonia
New Hampshire, 1917

22. Willa Cather
Jaffrey, New Hampshire, 1920s

23. Willa Cather
December 7, 1936