Call for Nominations

Thomas J. Lyon Book Award

To honor outstanding single-author scholarly books on the literature and culture of the North American West, the Western Literature Association presidents invite nominations for the annual Thomas J. Lyon Book Award.

To qualify, a book must have a 2018 publication date and be a single-authored, book-length study on the literature and culture of the North American West.

Please find information about the procedure to nominate a book on our website: <http://www.westernlit.org/thomas-j-lyon-book-award-in-western-american-literary-and-cultural-studies/>.

Deadline for nominations: May 20, 2019.

Don D. Walker Prize

The Don D. Walker prize is given annually to the best essay published on western American literature during the previous calendar year. "Western" in this context is defined broadly and refers to all of North America that historically or critically has been considered "West" as well as to comparative studies of the American West that cross regional or national boundaries.

The Western Literature Association invites nominations from presses and journals as well as from individuals. Self-nominations are accepted. Please find more information at <http://www.westernlit.org/don-d-walker-prize/>.

Deadline for nominations: May 20, 2019.

The Louis Owens Awards for Graduate Student Presenters at the WLA Conference

The WLA honors the great writer and scholar Louis Owens for his contributions to western American and American Indian literary studies and for his unfailing generosity as a colleague, teacher, and mentor. The goal of the Louis Owens Awards is to build for the future of the Western Literature Association by modeling Owens's own support and encouragement of diverse graduate student engagement in western literature and culture studies.

The Owens Awards are intended to foster ever-greater diversity within the WLA membership, to help broaden the field of western American literary studies, and to recognize both graduate student scholarship and financial need.

Your paper must be approved by the WLA presidents before you can apply for the Owens Award. Information on the application procedure can be found on our website: <http://www.westernlit.org/the-louis-owens-awards-for-graduate-student-presenters-at-wla-conferences/>.

Congratulations to Our 2018 WLA Award Recipients

Distinguished Achievement Awards

For an influential scholar or creative writer in Western American literature

Percival Everett

and

José E. Limón

Delbert & Edith Wylder Award

For outstanding service to the association

Tom Lynch (University of Nebraska–Lincoln)

Thomas J. Lyon Book Award

For the most outstanding book published in 2017 in Western American literary and cultural studies

Richard Etulain for Ernest Haycox and the Western (University of Oklahoma Press)

Don D. Walker Prize

For best essay published in Western American literary studies in 2017

Jessica Hurley (University of Chicago) for "Impossible Futures: Fictions of Risk in the Longue Durée," American Literature, vol. 89, no. 4

Frederick Manfred Award

For the best creative writing submission to the conference

Sidney Thompson (Texas Christian University) for "Thataway," an excerpt from Bazz: Narrative of the Life of Bass Reeves

WLA/Charles Redd Center K–12 Teaching Award

Nathan Parker (Holland Hall School, Tulsa, OK) for "Susan Glaspell's 'A Jury of Her Peers'/Trifles: Everyone's Favorite High Plains Playwright"

J. Golden Taylor Award

For best essay presented at the conference by a graduate student

Travis Franks (Arizona State University) for "Make Settler Fantasy Strange Again: Unsettling Normative White Masculinity in Robert E. Howard's Weird West"

Dorys Grover Awards

For outstanding papers presented at the conference by graduate students who contribute to our critical understandings of region, place, and space in Western American literatures

Meagan Meylor (University of Southern California) for "'Red Blood and Delicate Joys': Syncopated Time and Ecological Form in Mary Austin's The Land of Little Rain"

and

Amanda Monteleone (University of Texas at Arlington) for "The Native Gothic in the Poetry of John Rollin Ridge"

Louis Owens Awards

For graduate student presenters contributing most to cultural diversity in the association

Lydia Heberling (University of Washington-Seattle) for "Spanish Missions, Textbooks, and Archives: California's Indigenous Hubs"

and

Tisha Reichle (University of Southern California) for "Adaptation in the Borderlands"

and

Bernadette Russo (Texas...