This week I’m with my writing group in Red Cloud, Nebraska. It’s where the author Willa Cather grew up, and wrote some of her best known novels. We are exploring her tiny hometown, discovering the prairie that inspired her, writing, and working on plans for our second book together. You can read a little more about my writing group in this post.
It’s easy to imagine Willa here, walking up and down the streets of Red Cloud, and lying down in the deep grass of the prairie, writing My Antonia. We are sleeping and writing in the house where she herself lived and wrote. It helps make the connection between what she saw every day, and the words that came out of her.
I’m reminded of a walk Dan and I took last month in downtown Asheville, our newish hometown. We walked around the outside of the Thomas Wolfe home and museum. It was after hours, and closed, but they had helpful call-in stations around the house. We listened to a narrator talk about Wolfe, his family, and his writing. He didn’t make any friends in town when his novels were published. His characters were thinly disguised portraits of his family and neighbors. This, I understand. The one novel I tried writing managed to be similar. Non-fiction, however creative, seems more transparent to me. Here’s my confession: I’ve never read any Thomas Wolfe. And I’m a reader. With a nod to my new hometown, Look Homeward, Angel is now on my library holds list. I might even venture back downtown to the museum to rock and read a chapter or two on the inviting front porch.
What literary connections can you make where you live? Maybe a writer lived or wrote nearby. Maybe your town or area figures in a new novel or an old mystery. Check out the possibilities with an internet search. Or read this article about literary places to visit or this one about Literary Road Trips. Enjoy!
Want a writing prompt? Try this: Explore
The Thomas Wolfe Home, Asheville, NC
