Willa Cather┬аwas born near Winchester, Virginia, in 1873. When she was ten years old, her family moved to the prairies of Nebraska, later the setting for a number of her novels. At the age of twenty-one, she graduated from the University of Nebraska, and she spent the next few years doing newspaper work and teaching high school in Pittsburgh. In 1903, her first book,┬аApril Twilights,┬аa collection of poems, was published, and two years later┬аThe Troll Garden,┬аa collection of stories, appeared in print. After the publication of her first novel,┬аAlexanderтАЩs Bridge,┬аin 1912, Cather devoted herself full time to writing, and over the years she completed eleven more novels (including┬аO Pioneers!, My ├Бntonia, The ProfessorтАЩs House,┬аand┬аDeath Comes for the Archbishop), four collections of short stories, and two volumes of essays. Cather won the Pulitzer Prize for┬аOne of Oursin 1923. She died in 1947.