Willa Cather’s love/hate relationship with fame and the press was fierce. She courted fame in her youth, but expressed discomfort with it once it arrived.

Yet Cather left a wealth of public pronouncements, derived mainly from interviews she granted and speeches she made. She also wrote many autobiographical sketches, press releases, and even furtive semi-reviews in the third person as a way to promote her work.

Still, the more known she became, the more irritable she grew with loss of privacy.

For someone as ambivalent about publicity as Cather claimed to be, she granted tons of interviews. Judging by the vigor of her responses, she seemed to relish holding forth on the subject dearest to her heart—her writings. Read More→