Schedule

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8:45 a.m. Welcome

• Melissa Homestead, co-editor of The Complete Letters of Willa Cather and director of the Cather Project

9:00-10:15 a.m. Panel 1: Cather’s letters and fandom

• Charles Johanningsmeier, University of Nebraska-Omaha, “Cather’s Letters to – and from – Her Readers, and the Challenge They Represent.”
• John Flannigan, Prairie State College (retired), “The ‘Very Especial Pleasure’ of Places: Fan Letters from Willa Cather”

10:15-10:30 a.m. Break

10:30-11:45 a.m. Panel 2: Cather’s correspondence with women artists

• Jessica Tebo, University of Colorado at Boulder, “Letters from Olive Fremstad to Willa Cather: A View Beyond the Song of the Lark”
• Sara Bryant, Swarthmore College, “Queer Affinity and Mass-Culture Fame: The Letters and Friendship between Willa Cather and Zoë Akins”

11:45 a.m.-1:00 p.m. Lunch break

1:00-2:00 p.m. Panel 3: “Patterns and Outliers Across Cather’s Correspondence”

• Gabi Kirilloff, Washington University in St. Louis, presenting on work in collaboration with Matthew Lavin, Denison College, and Sean McCollough, TCU
• Conversation led by Andrew Jewell, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

2:15-3:30 p.m. Panel 4: Personal correspondence, professional correspondence, and the blurred line between them

• Troy Hassinger, Independent Scholar, “Print Media Ecologies and Editorial Visions: Willa Cather’s Letters to McClure’s Magazine and the Emergence of the Early Twentieth-Century Periodical Press.”
• Laurie Weber, Independent Scholar, “‘My Dear Boy’: Willa Cather’s Correspondence with Roscoe Cather”

3:45-5:00 Roundtable on digital editing American women authors’ letters

• Chair: Andrew Jewell
• Melissa Bradshaw, Loyola University Chicago
• Nicole Gray, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
• Melissa Homestead, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
• Emily Rau, University of Nebraska-Lincoln