Places to Visit for Writers and Readers

I love to visit the places where writers worked or lived. Here is a site that might interest you if you feel the same. http://flavorwire.com/403319/50-places-every-literary-fan-should-visit/50 Many of the places listed are in Europe so they are out of reach for me, although I did hit a couple of their favorites here in the United States.

We have been to Hannibal, Missouri several times to visit the land of Mark Twain. I remember one of my small sons calling out "Mark Twain" one night as he raced ahead of us in the dark on the levy. When a voice hollered in from the river saying, "Yes, I am and who are you?", he stopped dead in his tracks and no longer wanted to be alone in the dark.

Again while the boys were pretty young, we visited Robert Frost's home in Vermont. Oh, how I loved it there, a small house tucked in under pine trees with a poetry path soft with fallen pine needles. The boys were not interested in anything but getting on down the road. DH and I returned years later and I lingered there.

Another family vacation involved Red Cloud, Nebraska and the home of Willa Cather. Now the boys were big enough to laugh at me. WHO would want to stop in Red Cloud where there was NOTHING. Once they were home, they continued to tell people how Mother wanted to go to Red Cloud for Pete's sakes! Why did she always want to go to houses of dead people? DH and I again returned later to Red Cloud. The town is small but wonderful allowing visitors to feel the characters and times from Cather's work. Of course, the surrounding landscape is also a character in her writings.

I have been to Faulkner's Rowan Oak in Mississippi and through Flannery O'Conner's town in Georgia. Unfortunately, her Andalusia was closed the day we were there which was a big disappointment to me. Also I have been to Kate Chopin's home in the South, although I think she was originally from St. Louis.

I also visited Carl Sandburg's tiny house near the train tracks in Illinois. While I have favorite poems of his like "Fog", I have not studied a lot of Sandburg. He was an interesting man, and I have a reprint of his signed poem "Fog" on my office wall to remind me tiny lines can live long!

The fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on. 

How about you? What author sites have you visited?