On publication of “This new Count off Crow’s nest” (1897) Cather approached exactly what has been termed the lady “Henry James months” (Woodress, 110). Now when you look at the Nyc, James turned much more about her make of creating . From the following their literary hobbies and you can visual motives she es” (O’Brien, 1987, 110) . During the peak away from her Jamesian phase she written such as psychological bits given that “The fresh new Character” (1907), “New Ready Muse” (1907), and you will “Eleanor’s Household” (1907). Imitative and you will inauthentic since they’re, these stories encourage subscribers 
into the approach, characterisation, and you can topic– case of James, Hawthorne, and Edith Wharton. “The fresh new Namesake” (1907) , “To your Gull’s Roadway” (1908), and you may, ultimately, Alexander’s Link owe as much in order to this lady literary learn. At any rate, it was not up to Cather had a great deal more depend on in her indigenous matter you to definitely she threw in the towel the lady Jamesian brand of creating.
Not surprisingly, Cather found inside the Jewett “the majority of people: a lady literary forerunner, a woman journalist whom she you will definitely admiration, a guide, and a boosting pal” (O’Brien, 1987, 332)
For her cure for literary artistry Willa Cather are greatly advised from the The fresh new England author Sarah Orne Jewett . Even if Jewett was twenty–few years Cather’s elder together with resided entirely about Eastern – composing fictional on the lady family home into the Southern area Berwick, Maine, and you may conversing with literati at Mrs. Fields’s stately household with the Beacon Mountain during the Boston – there were many parallels between them. Other than a common need for during the last, both had a rural record and you can a beneficial enjoy getting stories. Indeed, it was Jewett exactly who not only urged the girl to track down into the in her invention since an author but provided this lady fundamental suggestions on the best way to proceed within her imaginative writing . Inside the a good 1913 interview Cather recalled the woman mentor’s admonition:
Develop it as it is, cannot try to make they similar to this otherwise one to. You simply cannot get it done in the anyone’s ways – you are going to need to create a means of your. In case the method has become new, don’t allow one to frighten your. Do not just be sure to produce the sort of short-story that this or one mag wishes – produce the fact, and you will allow them to take it or leave it. (Cather inside KA, 449)
Following the fulfilling within the 1908 both women editors put up a loving and tender matchmaking hence ended unexpectedly that have Jewett’s untimely demise inside the 1909
Jewett including forecast their buddy’s artistic method whenever she remarked from inside the a page one “the point that teases your mind over repeatedly for a long time, and at last gets itself set-out appropriately in writing – if or not little or high, it belongs to Literature” (NUF, 76). Moreover, Cather derived a few of their alot more practical information towards fiction out-of learning Jewett . For what she located exemplified in her own work was indeed a couple points you to definitely she viewed as required to the ability of creating: a beneficial “present off sympathy” (NUF, 80), that is the writer’s capacity to give himself surely to their procedure, and you may an excellent “current regarding heart-to-heart”(NUF, 84), and thus the new author’s familiarity with the fresh new indigenous idiom of your own residents. Blessed having Jewett’s gift suggestions, Cather are ready to embark on a professional community because the an excellent fictional copywriter.
After an apprenticeship of more than two decades Willa Cather sooner or later emerged due to the fact a beneficial novelist inside the 1912. When you find yourself Alexander’s Connection had been mostly in financial trouble in order to James, it absolutely was O Pioneers!, where Cather accepted the lady local situation and you can spoke within her very own aesthetic sound for the first time . Of 1913 beforehand the fresh books have demostrated Cather’s literary expertise. Even with all variety the girl novelistic ?uvre testifies into author’s insistence to your poetic creative imagination given that central concept of one’s creative techniques. Inside a 1915 interview, Cather proclaimed: