Born December 7: Willa Cather

At fourteen in Nebraska, Willa Cather began dressing as a boy and calling herself William, which continued at least four years, into her studies at the state university. So, later, when she could choose a fictional world to live in, she tended to write about male characters. Although known for her paeans to life in the Midwest, like O Pioneers! and My Antonia, she spent her entire adult life in New York City, where for more than 35 years she lived with her partner Edith Lewis. Nebraska is often a starting point, but her twelve novels diverge to cover an incredible range: Song of the Lark is about an opera singer who travels internationally. One of Ours (for which she won the Pulitzer Prize) features a man enlisting to fight in World War I after his wife leaves to do missionary work in China. Death Comes for the Archbishop takes place in New Mexico and is her masterpiece, according to many critics, although A.S. Byatt, Bob Smith, and Peter Cameron prefer The Professor's House.