Join us for a fascinating examination of the homesteader culture and prairie landscape featured in Willa Cather's novels as understood through the rise of populism in the region! Author Lynda Beck Fenwick will share passages from her recent book Prairie Bachelor: The Story of A Kansas Homesteader and the Populist Movement, which chronicles the life of Kansas homesteader Isaac Beckley Werner. Through Fenwick's historical lens, readers may also gain a richer context in which to read Cather's second novel, O Pioneers!.  Register for the event here.

You can purchase a copy of Lynda Beck Fenwick's book here.

This author series event is made possible by generous donor support as well as the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) as part of the American Rescue Plan (ARP) Act of 2021. NEH is committed to Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan (SHARP).

About the Author

Lynda Beck Fenwick and her husband Larry have been supporters of the Willa Cather Foundation since they discovered the National Willa Cather Center on a road trip, but Lyn fell in love with Cather when she read My Ántonia at age 11. Lyn grew up on a fourth generation farm in Kansas, but after marriage and college graduation, career moves took Larry and Lyn to New England, Texas, New York City, Georgia, and North Carolina before retirement brought her back to the farm of her childhood. Formerly an English teacher, Lyn also practiced law after graduating from Baylor Law School. Lyn is the author of Should the Children Pray: A Historical, Judicial, and Political Examination of Public School Prayer, for which she was named Author of the Year by the Council of Authors and Journalists; Private Choices, Public Consequences: Reproductive Technology and the New Ethics of Conception; and Prairie Bachelor: The Story of a Kansas Homesteader and the Populist Movement. In addition to publishing numerous articles in legal journals, a short story, and a one-act play, Lyn is also a juried portrait artist whose work was featured in the spring 2019 issue of the WIlla Cather Review.