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2023 WLA Award Recipients
Distinguished Achievement Award
For an influential scholar or creative writer in western American literature
Mark Trahant, Editor-at-Large for Indian Country
Delbert & Edith Wylder Award
For outstanding service to the association
Susan Bernardin, Oregon State University
Thomas J. Lyon Book Award
For most outstanding book published last year in western American literary and cultural studies
Chadwick Allen, University of Washington for Earthworks Rising: Mound Building in Native Literature and Arts (University of Minnesota Press)
and
Christine Bold, University of Guelph for "Vaudeville Indians" on Global Circuits, 1880s-19030s (Yale University Press)
Don D. Walker Prize
For best essay published in western American literary studies in 2022
Timothy Foster, independent scholar, and John Beusterien, Texas Tech University for "The Thirsty Llano Estacado: The Manuel Maés Ballad Corpus," Great Plains Quarterly, vol. 42, no. 1–2 (Winter/Spring 2022)
Creative Writing Award
For the best creative writing submission to the conference
Mel Anderson, Idaho State University for "Salt" [End Page 300]
WLA/Charles Redd Center K–12 Teaching Award
Provides teachers with the opportunity to attend and present at the WLA Conference; sponsored by the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies and the WLA
Emily Ward, Rockland High School for "Shoshone-Bannock History and Native American Policy"
J. Golden Taylor Award
For best essay presented at the conference by a graduate student
Patrick Vincent, University of California, Riverside for "'Mi Tierra Es Su Tierra / Mi Mundo Es Su Mundo': Performance, Neoliberalism, and the West In Tropic of Orange"
Dorys Crow 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
Brian Arechiga, University of Southern California for "There There and Modes of Simulacra Resistance"
and
Lauren White, University of Southern California for "Little Edens: Exploring Missionary Projects and National Parks in The Surrounded"
Louis Owens Awards
For graduate student presenters contributing exceptional scholarship and expanding diversity in the association
Mathilde Magga, University of Washington for "The Impossibility of the Novel: Exploring Temporality and Form in Billy-Ray Belcourt's A Minor Chorus"
and
Vanessa Ramirez, University of North Texas for "Port Houston: In this Hood, We, Latinx, Break Statistics" [End Page 301]