Willa Sibert Cather Thanks the West for Her Success as Writer of Stories

The Denver Times: "Times Daily Magazine Page for Everybody"

monday evening, 16 august 1915

Note on the Text

Italics are employed to indicate the portions of this interview that were later incorporated verbatim in the Lincoln Star, 25 October 1915. The first eleven paragraphs of this article were reprinted the same day in the Nebraska State Journal and credited to "a Denver Paper." See Melissa J. Homestead's introduction in this issue for more information.

Noted Novelist Who is Visiting in Colorado to Get Material for Book Gives Advice on Authorship

Woman Who Tells 'Don'ts' for the Aspiring Writer

Don't write stories on subjects with which you are not familiar.

Don't attempt a subject beyond your power.

Don't imitate.

Avoid extreme descriptive.

Don't expect every story with an original style to be published.

Everything I Write is Recollection of Childhood Experience, of Something That Touched Me as Youngster

MISS WILLA SIBERT CATHER, one of America's foremost novelists and magazine writers, who is visiting in Colorado preparatory to writing a book on the cliff dwelling region, holds the West indirectly responsible for her success as an author.

It is in the West, she declared yesterday, that she obtained all her material for writing her most successful novels. It is also in the West that she received many of the thrills and delights of her life, which she recalls in the books she writes today. According to Miss Cather, all the material for her writing had been collected before she was 20 years old.

"I have had nothing really new since that time," she said. "Every story I have written since then has been a recollection of some childhood experience, of something that touched me while a youngster."

A Few of Her Books

And as illustrations may be cited a few of Miss Cather's most successful books, "O Pioneers," "The Bohemian Girl," and "The Song of the Lark."

In these books has the author inter-woven experiences of her early life, when she lived in eastern Colorado and Nebraska. Her "Bohemian Girl" was inspired by a settlement of Bohemians in whom she was interested when a child. The scene of "The Song of the Lark" was laid in eastern Colorado, and intermingled into the story are the lives of some of her acquaintances there.¹

"You must know a subject as a child, before you ever had any idea of writing, to instill into it in a story, the true feeling," said Miss Cather. "After you grow up impressions don't come so easily.

"And it is for the purpose of recalling the old feelings I had in my youth that I come West every summer. The West has for me that something which excites me, and gives me what I want and need to write a story."

Visits Mesa Verde Park

Miss Cather is accompanied by Miss Edith Lewis, assistant editor of Every Week. The two are now in for Mesa Verde National park, where they will spend a few weeks. Later they will go near Durango and Pueblo to see the old homes of the cliff dwellers, which Miss Cather plans to use in her next novel.²

"In my books I try to give to others the delightful feelings that I got out of this wonderful country," she said.

In this desire to express, in words her own feelings, lies what Miss Cather emphasizes as one of the attributes of success. To young authors she especially advises that attention be paid to this detail of writing on subjects really felt by the author and on subjects with which he is familiar.

And for the task of dealing out advice to the inexperienced, Miss Cather is well-equipped. For six years she was managing editor of McClure's magazine and during her association with the magazine, she said yesterday, she had read enough manuscript to fill the drawing room of the Brown Palace hotel, in which she was sitting while talking.³

"It is absolutely necessary for a young writer to deal with subjects he...