Willa Cather was at the height of her career as a New York magazine editor when she abruptly quit in 1912 at age 38 to write fiction. That year she made her first of six trips to the American Southwest, visiting Arizona and New Mexico just as these two territories became states. In this course, we'll explore how Cather's Southwestern travels inspired three of her novels: The Song of the Lark (derived from her 1912 trip), The Professor’s House (inspired by her trip to Mesa Verde, Colorado in 1915), and her “best book” (her words), Death Comes for the Archbishop, which she researched and wrote during her 1925 and 1926 travels to Taos and Santa Fe with her partner Edith Lewis.