The Dorys Crow Grover Awards

In 1966, Washington State University graduate student Dorys Crow Grover joined the fledgling Western Literature Association and started attending its conferences. From her books on WLA’s first Distinguished Achievement Award recipient, Vardis Fisher, to her work on Hemingway and Graves, Professor Grover helped to develop the field of western American literary studies. After teaching for over two decades at East Texas State University, Professor Grover retired in 1993, splitting her time between Texas and Pendleton, Oregon, where she grew up.

One of her doctoral students, Joyce Kinkead, Professor of English at Utah State University, created the Dorys Crow Grover Awards in recognition of her mentor’s dedication to both western American literature and to graduate students. She funded two awards until Dr. Grover’s passing at 101 in 2023.

The WLA is happy to announce the continuation of the Dorys Crow Grover Awards, with support from the WLA and Nic Witschi.

Two graduate students whose papers given at the conference contribute to our critical understandings of region, place, and space in western American literatures will receive a $200 cash prize and a conference banquet ticket.

Creative work is not considered for the Dorys Crow Grover Awards.

Please submit an essay (not exceeding 15 pages) that you plan to deliver at the conference with a cover letter indicating that you wish to be considered for the Dorys Crow Grover Award.

Email your submission to Audrey Goodman, chair of the Dorys Crow Grover Judging Committee, with the subject line “GROVER AWARD SUBMISSION.”

Deadline for submission: July 15, 2026

The award consists of a $200 cash prize plus a banquet ticket.

You may submit the same paper for the Taylor Award, if you wish.

Note: To be eligible for this award, you must be registered as a graduate student at your institution at the time of the awards ceremony. And the award can only be received once.

The Dorys Grover Award Recipients

2025 Crista Fiala, University of Connecticut, “’Untraditional Intimacies’: Re-Pairing American Narratives of Racialization and Settler Colonialism in Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous (2019)”
2025 Isaac Salazar, Rice University, “Speculative Borderlands and the Insurgency of Time: World-Traveling in Rudolfo Anaya’s ChupaCabra Trilogy”
2024 Chaney Hill, Rice University, “The Age of the Trufflepig: Speculative Memory in the Texas/Mexico Borderlands in Tears of the Trufflepig”
2024 Aniqa Jangaheer, Idaho State University, “The Spatial Mapping of Home and ‘Transmotion’ in Native American Storytelling through Moonshot: The Indigenous Comics Collection”
2023 Brian Arechiga, University of Southern California
2023 Lauren White, University of Southern California
2022 Dylan Couch, University of Idaho
2022 Cara Schwartz, University of Saskatchewan
2021 Sarah Jane Kerwin, University of Michigan—Ann Arbor
2020 Sarah Nolan, University of Southern California
2020 Renee Sprinkle, West Texas A&M University
2019 Maria Alberto, University of Utah
2019 Travis Franks, Arizona State University
2018 Meagan Meylor, University of Southern California
2018 Amanda Monteleone, University of Texas at Arlington
2017 April Anson
2017 Lisa Fink
2016 Amy Gore
2016 Michael Olausen
2015 William V. Lombardi
2015 Michael P. Taylor
2014 Brittany Henry
2014 Lisa Locascio
2014 Ashley Reis