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Love Books; Must Travel! Willa Cather.
On an August road trip to Arizona and California, I veered off of the highway, traversed a farm road or two and pulled into Red Cloud, Nebraska at twilight.
I was here, at long last, to glory in the prairie landscape that fired Willa Cather's imagination and shaped her writing long after she went east.
Red Cloud is named after a Lakota Sioux chief whose portrait hangs in some of the town's buildings, and it is rural, flat and spacious in the way that Midwestern farm towns often are. Residential streets shaded by oaks and elms sprawl away from a double-wide boulevard that boasts a small business district, a lovely boutique hotel and the stunning Willa Cather Foundation.
Cather was nine when her family left Virginia and traveled west, settling first outside of Red Cloud and then moving into town.
"Sunflower-bordered roads always seem to me the roads to freedom."--Willa Cather.
My Cather immersion began with a Cather Foundation tour given by a young Nebraska born and bred book-lover and historian who took me to the Cather family home.
I peeked into Willa's top-floor bedroom where the flowered wallpaper that she loved has been carefully restored and marveled at her collection of games and books.
Then we were off to six other beautifully preserved buildings--a church, a train depot and more-- that figured into Cather's life and her writing.
"It was over flat lands like this, stretching out to drink the sun, that the larks sang--and one's heart sang there too." Willa Cather.
Willa Cather went to college in Nebraska and then boarded a train and spent much of her life on the eastern seaboard, publishing a series of Nebraska novels and winning the Pulitzer Prize for "One of Ours."
Her family eventually left Red Cloud but Cather remained in close correspondence with her friends there, sending money when one needed a washing machine, paying for the installation of painted glass windows in the local church.
She missed her hometown, writing in 1945 that she preferred it "to any of the beautiful cities in Europe."
If You Go:
Stay: at Hotel Garber, a lovely boutique hotel just opened in April, 2025.
Eat: at The Alley Cat, a town gathering place where you can get a great stack of pancakes and bowl a few rounds.
Do: book a tour through the Cather Foundation. https://www.willacather.org/
Don't Miss: A hike and picnic lunch at The Cather Memorial Prairie outside of town.
Love Books! Must Travel: Jane Eyre's England. F. Scott's French Riviera & Provence
Sirens, I think there is nothing so exhilarating for book-lovers than to see the forests, the seascapes, the villages and the woodlands that fired the imaginations of the writers we love.
So, come with me to Jane Eyre's England. Or F. Scott Fitzgerald's French Riviera and Provence. Or Jeju, the magical island on which Lisa See's "Island of the Sea Women" is set. (A chicks-only escape!)
Each adventure is inspired by the language, the setting, and the sensibility of these terrific books. Each adventure includes a reading list that brings depth and context to our reading.
And each adventure will bring us closer to the writers we admire.
https://www.sirensojourns.com/upcoming-retreats
These trips will fill quickly. Email me if your interested in learning more. SirenSojourns@gmail.com.
Love Books! Must Travel. Sirens Are Trendsetters
Few Americans would know anything about Willa Cather's childhood on the Nebraska prairie if not for former teacher and Cather biographer Mildred R. Bennett.
In 1955, Bennett, who was living in Red Cloud with her husband, realized Cather fans would come to the prairie to see where "O Pioneers" and "My Antonia" had been set. Bennett understood that literary tourism was a thing!
Seventy years later, books are propelling new waves of readers and travelers to new places.
The international travel company EF Education First, reports that : “The intersection of social media and literature is creating an entirely new travel category." Gen Z and young Millennials are “turning fiction into flight plans.” And following in our footsteps.
"The Sheltering Sky," "Jane Eyre," "Tender is the Night" by F. Scott Fitzgerald and Lisa See's "The Island of the Sea Women" will all be our guides on upcoming SirenSojourn adventures.
I hope you'll be roaming and reading with me!
Want to see India's Tiger Reserves?
We've had a cancellation on the sold out "Life of Pi" expedition to India that departs in early November.
If you know an adventurous traveler who would like to go, please let me know.
Here are all of the details! https://www.sirensojourns.com/life-of-pi
Five Far-Flung Novels from Around the World
When I can't get away, I fill my To Be Read List with novels that sweep me far afield.
Here are 5 new-ish novels set in glamorously intriguing destinations.
"A Twist of Fate" by Se-Ah Jang: Unfolding on a speeding train through South Korea, we meet two women who decide to switch lives. What could go wrong?
"Restoration" by Ave Berrera (translated by Ellen Jones & Robin Myers): Jasmina is restoring a house in Mexico that has ghost stories to tell. Things get really hairy when Jasmina's own life starts to blend with the tales she's hearing.
"Perfection" by Vincenzo Latronico (translated by Sophie Hughes). Booker Prize Nominee. Set in Berlin where Anna and Tom are living the expat life replete with rising career success, interesting friends and European travel. It's all great....until it isn't.
"Stay With Me" by Hanne Orstavik translated by Martin Aitken features a Scandinavian central character who is widowed and enmeshed in an affair with a younger man. When his temper reminds her of her childhood, she begins to examine her relationship with her father.
"Isola" by Allegra Goodman. I'm a sucker for kick-ass women from the 16th and 17th centuries and when you meet Marguerite de la Rocque de Roberval you'll see why. Based on the true story of a de Roberval's life, the novel unfolds on a Canadian island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where she has been exiled by her unscrupulous guardian.