• Testimonials

    I could not have chosen a better conference or wished for a more welcoming, interested, and supportive group of scholars and colleagues to engage with.
    Johannes Fehrle, 2020
    Owens Award recipient 2011 and EC Member 2013-2016

Thomas J. Lyon Book Award in Western American Literary and Cultural Studies

Fifty-seven years after the founding of the Western Literature Association and Western American Literature, scholarship of the literary West is thriving in both quantity and quality. To honor outstanding, single-author scholarly books on the literature and culture of the American West, the Western Literature Association seeks nominations for the annual Thomas J. Lyon Book Award.

TO QUALIFY FOR THIS AWARD, BOOKS MUST

* have a 2022 publication date
* be an outstanding, single-author, book-length study on the literature and culture of the American West

The past presidents of the Western Literature Association sponsor this award and invite you TO NOMINATE A BOOK FOR THIS AWARD.

Readers who want to nominate a book can submit a statement of support to Anne Kaufman by June 1, 2023.

Self-nominating authors and presses, please send books directly to the committee members by June 15: 

Susan Bernardin, Chair
TJLyon Book Award 2023
3035 NW McKinley Drive
Corvallis OR 97330

Jada Ach
TJLyon Award 2023
639 S. 35th Pl.
Mesa AZ 85204

Travis Franks
TJLyon Award 2023
Department of English
3200 Old Main Hill
Logan UT 84322-3200


Nominations are due by June 1, 2023

Please contact Anne Kaufman for any questions you might have regarding this award.

____________________________________________________________

The WLA’s Thomas J. Lyon Book Award in Western American Literary and Cultural Studies Recipients

YearRecipientPublication
2022Audrey GoodmanA Planetary Lens: The Photo-Poetics of Western Women’s Writing
2021Susan NanceRodeo: An Animal History
2020Cathryn HalversonFaraway Women and the Atlantic Monthly
2019Kirby BrownStoking the Fire: Nationhood in Cherokee Writing, 1907–1970
2018Richard EtulainErnest Haycox and the Western
2017Priscilla Solis YbarraWriting the Goodlife: Mexican American Literature and the Environment
2016Susan KollinCaptivating Westerns
2015Lisa TatonettiThe Queerness of Native American Literature
2014Christine BoldThe Frontier Club: Popular Westerns and Cultural Power, 1880-1924
2013Annette KolodnyIn Search of First Contact: The Vikings of Vinland, the Peoples of the Dawnland, and the Anglo-American Anxiety of Discovery
2012Daniel WordenMasculine Style: The American West and Literary Modernism
2011Krista ComerSurfer Girls in the New World Order
2010John BeckDirty Wars: Landscape, Power, and Waste in Western American Literature
2009Tom LynchXerophelia: Ecocritical Explorations in Southwestern Literature
2008Robert McKee IrwinBandits, Captives, Heroines, and Saints: Cultural Icons of Mexico's Northwest Borderlands
2007 John-Michael RiveraThe Emergence of Mexican America: Recovering Stories of Mexican Peoplehood in US Culture
2006David Dorado RomoRingside Seat to a Revolution: An Underground Cultural History of El Paso and Juárez 1893-1923
2005Stephanie LeMenagerManifest and Other Destinies: Territorial Fictions of the Nineteenth-Century United States (University of Nebraska Press, 2004)
2004Nathaniel LewisUnsettling the Literary West: Authenticity and Authorship (University of Nebraska Press, 2003)
2003Audrey GoodmanTranslating Southwestern Landscapes: The Making of an Anglo Literary Region (University of Arizona Press, 2002)
2002James M. CahalanEdward Abbey: A Life (University of Arizona Press, 2001)
2001Gary ScharnhorstBret Harte: Opening the American Literary West (University of Oklahoma Press, 2000)
2000Susan RosowskiBirthing a Nation: Gender, Creativity, and the West in American Literature (University of Nebraska Press, 1999)
1999Thomas PilkingtonState of Mind: Texas Literature and Culture (Texas A&M University Press, 1998)
1998Andrew ElkinsThe Great Poem of the Earth: A Study of the Poetry of Thomas Hornsby Ferril (University of Idaho Press, 1997)
Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail

Tags:

  • Western Literature Association (WLA)

    Founded in 1965, the Western Literature Association (WLA) is a non-profit, scholarly association that promotes the study of the diverse literature and cultures of the North American West, past and present.

  • Western American Literature (WAL)

    (The Journal)

    Published by the Western Literature Association, Western American Literature is the leading journal in western American literary studies.

  • Black Lives Matter

    The Western Literature Association (WLA) is in solidarity with Black communities, after the murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor, and the ongoing pattern of systemic racism and injustice that targets black and brown bodies. ...http://www.westernlit.org/black-lives-matter/