Willa Cather

Willa Cather (1873-1947) was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist and short story writer. Cather often thwarted convention in her writing, choosing to avoid traditional stories with romance and heroes in favor of complex, striving women whose marriages and loves are secondary to their striving. Her distinguished regionalist writing includes her Great Plains trilogy (O Pioneers!, The Song of the Lark, and My Ántonia). Cather was survived by her long-time domestic partner and literary executor, Edith Lewis.