Awarded to an influential scholar in the field of western American literature (creative writer or critic)
The WLA’s Distinguished Achievement Award Recipients
- 2025 Quraysh Ali Lansana
- 2024 Frances Washburn
- 2023 Mark Trahant
- 2022 Luci Tapahonso
- 2021 No award was given due to rescheduling of the conference to 2022.
- 2020 Juan Felipe Herrera
- 2020 Stephen Graham Jones
- 2019 Leslie Marmon Silko
- 2018 Percival Everett & José E. Limón
- 2017 Rick Shiomi
- 2016 Maxine Hong Kingston
- 2015 LeAnne Howe & Robert Laxalt
- 2014 Connie Kaldor
- 2013 Robert Hass & Louis Owens
- 2012 Richard Slotkin & Joss Whedon
- 2011 Thomas McGuane
- 2010 Luis Valdez
- 2009 Cormac McCarthy
- 2008 William Kittredge and Patty Limerick
- 2007 Sherman Alexie
- 2006 Terry Tempest Williams
- 2005 Gerald Vizenor and Joan Didion
- 2004 Mary Clearman Blew and Thomas King
- 2003 Sandra Cisneros and José David Saldívar, Ramón Saldívar, and Sonia Saldívar-Hull
- 2002 Annette Kolodny and Alberto A. Ríos
- 2001 Patricia Hampl and Roderick Nash
- 2000 Joy Harjo
- 1999 James D. Houston and Gerald Haslam
- 1998 Rudy Wiebe
- 1997 Rudolfo Anaya
- 1996 Tillie Olsen
- 1995 Robert Kroetsch
- 1994 James Maguire, Wayne Chatterton, and James Welch
- 1993 Tony Hillerman
- 1992 Louise Erdrich
- 1991 Ann Zwinger
- 1990 Elmer Kelton
- 1989 Ivan Doig and Mildred R. Bennett
- 1988 Ken Kesey and Max Westbrook
- 1987 Larry McMurtry and Thomas J. Lyon
- 1986 Benjamin Capps and Don D. Walker
- 1985 Américo Paredes and William Eastlake
- 1984 Gary Snyder
- 1983 N. Scott Momaday
- 1982 Thomas Hornsby Ferril
- 1981 Dorothy Johnson
- 1980 Sophus Keith Winther and Bernice Slote
- 1979 Wright Morris
- 1978 Edward Abbey
- 1977 Thomas McGrath
- 1976 William Stafford
- 1975 Jack Schaefer
- 1974 Wallace Stegner and J. Golden Taylor
- 1973 Paul Horgan
- 1972 A. B. Guthrie, Jr.
- 1971 Harvey Fergusson and John G. Neihardt
- 1970 Henry Nash Smith
- 1969 Walter Van Tilburg Clark
- 1968 Frank Waters
- 1967 Frederick Manfred
- 1966 Vardis Fisher