Don D. Walker Prize

The Don D. Walker Prize is given annually to the best journal essay or book chapter from an edited collection in Western North American literary and cultural studies, published during the previous calendar year (for example, the 2024 winner’s essay will have a publication date of 2023). “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.

Nominations are solicited from presses and journals, as well as from individuals. Self-nominations are accepted. The prize selection committee is made up of Western Literature Association members.

The award will be given at the annual Western Literature Association conference.

It is not necessary to be a member of the association to win the award.

Please submit the essay or article you wish to nominate (preferably by electronic attachment) to the committee chair, Emily Lutenski.

In the event of print submission, please send 5 copies to

Emily Lutenski
Walker Prize Chair
Department of Interdisciplinary Studies
ASU Box 32080
112 Living Learning Center
305 Bodenheimer Dr,
Boone NC 28608

Deadline for nominations: June 1, 2024.

If you have any questions, please email Dr. Emily Lutenski directly.

Don D. Walker Prize Recipients

2023 Timothy Foster and John Beusterien for “The Thirsty Llano Estacado: The Manuel Maés Ballad Corpus,” Great Plains Quarterly 42.1/2
2022 Krista Comer for “Staying with the White Trouble of Recent Feminist Westerns,” Western American Literature 56.2
2021 Joshua Smith for “Uncle Tom’s Cabin Showdown: Stowe, Tarantino, and the Minstrelsy of the Weird West,” in Weird Westerns: Race, Gender, Genre , ed. by Kerry Fine, Michael Johnson, Rebecca Lush and Sara Spurgeon
2020 Emily Lutenski for “Dickens Disappeared: Black Los Angeles and the Borderlands of Racial Memory,” American Studies
2019 Marcel Brousseau for “Allotment Knowledges: Grid Spaces, Home Places, and Storyscapes on the Way to Rainy Mountain, ” Native American and Indigenous Studies
2018 Jessica Hurley for “Impossible Futures: Fictions of Risk in the Longue Durée,” American Literature
2017 Christopher Pexa
2016 Lori Harrison-Kahan and Karen E. H. Skinazi
2015 Joanna Hearne
2014 Jayson Gonzales Sae-Saue
2013 Kay Yandell
2012 Kirby Brown
2011 Chadwick Allen
2010 Hsuan L. Hsu
2009 Mark Rifkin
2008 Chadwick Allen
2007 Stephen Tatum
2006 Janet Dean
2005 Susan Bernardin
2004 Stephanie LeMenager
2003 Susan Scheckel
2002 Victoria Lamont
2001 Susan Kollin
2000 Chadwick Allen
1999 Krista Comer
1998 Forrest Robinson
1997 Gary Scharnhorst
1996 Susan K. Bernardin
1995 Stephen Tatum
1994 Susan Lee Johnson
1993 Annette Kolodny
1992 Roxanne Rimstead
1991 Glen A. Love
1990 Lee Clark Mitchell
1987 Roger Stein
1986 Margery Fee
1985 William Lemon
1984 Melody Graulich
1983 Robert Roripaugh
1982 Richard Slotkin
1981 Anthony Hunt
1980 Forrest G. Robinson
1979 Jarold Ramsey