Willa Cather

An item at American Writers Museum

After graduating from college, Willa Cather left Nebraska for Pittsburgh and then Manhattan, where she stayed until the end of her life-but the American West would always be her great literary subject.

My Ántonia (1918), the story of two young people growing up on the frontier, is considered her finest work. "No romantic novel ever written in America, by man or woman, is one-half so beautiful as My Ántonia," wrote critic H. L. Mencken. Cather won the Pulitzer Prize for One of Ours (1922), about the restless son of a Nebraska farmer, whom she modeled on a cousin killed during World War I.

AMERICAN VOICES

An exhibit at American Writers Museum

American writing is distinctive, diverse, and comes in many forms from across the nation. The 100 authors featured here represent the evolution of American writing. Learn more about each writer on the timeline by turning the panels below their portraits. Explore centuries of writing by pulling, turning, and touching the interactive elements on the counter.

This is not meant to be a list of the greatest or most influential writers. Instead, we present authors and works as part of the American story as it grows and changes. Taken together, this rich literary heritage reflects America in all of its complexity: its energy, hope, conflict, disillusionment, and creativity.

American Writers Museum