Western Literature Association

WLA Conference 2026

The 2026 WLA President, Dr. Kirby Brown, is pleased to host the 2026 Conference in Eugene, Oregon, from August 26–29. Please note the earlier date!

Call for Papers

The 2026 Western Literature Association Conference
will take place August 26-29, 2026
at The Graduate-Hilton Hotel in Eugene, Oregon

Nestled along the banks of the Wilamut River in the central Willamette Valley, the city now known as Eugene has long been a gathering space for Kalapuya and other Indigenous peoples and a home to a diverse ecology of oak savannahs, camas fields, wapato habitats, salmon fisheries, managed forests, and more than human relations. With the opening of the Oregon Trail in the 1830s, the valley experienced dramatic social, cultural, economic, and ecological change: between 1846 and 1869, over 400,000 settlers transformed oak savannahs into agricultural fields, logged old growth forests, drained wetlands, dammed rivers and streams, and forcibly displaced Kalapuya and other Indigenous peoples onto reservations. From its time as a territory through the early decades of statehood, the State of Oregon and municipalities like Eugene forbade black residents from permanently settling in the state, supported Ku Klux Klan activity, and variously excluded, exploited, or marginalized communities of Mexican, Asian, Pacific, and other national, ethnic, or religious backgrounds. At the same time, the Pacific Northwest (PNW) also has been a center of Indigenous resistance and resurgence, environmental activism and stewardship, union and worker organizing, countercultural politics, LGBTQ activism, and anti-racist and anti-fascist resistance.

Reflecting these complexities, WLA 2026 welcomes proposals on any aspect of literary and cultural productions of the “American West” (broadly conceived and complicated). We also encourage proposals for papers, panels, roundtables, lightning rounds, structured conversations, and other formats that explore any of the themes listed above or on the following topics:

  • Indigenous literary and cultural productions, especially those that engage work by our Distinguished Achievement Award recipients Elizabeth Woody (Diné, Warm Springs, Wasco, Yakama; enrolled Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs) and Esther Stutzman (Yoncalla Kalapuya; enrolled Confederated Tribes of Siletz), or by other Oregon and PNW Indigeous writers and artists
  • Indigenous ecological knowledge; Indigenous philosophies of kinship and responsibility; Indigenous theories of land, water, and interrelationality
  • Black, Asian, and Latinx histories of mobility, resistance, organizing, and influence across the PNW and “the West”
  • Travel, mobility, and exchange across and between Oceania and the PNW
  • Hmong, Basque, and Central and South American Indigenous communities/literatures
  • LGBTQ community building, activism, and creative practice in Eugene and the PNW
  • Black, Indigenous, and Women-of-Color feminisms and literatures
  • Environmental policy/activism, resource (co)management/stewardship, and national parks and public lands (broadly conceived)
  • Narratives, sites, venues, and questions of memorialization, commemoration, and archival practice
  • The possibilities and limitations of genre, media, and literary/aesthetic form
  • Panels, roundtables, or lightning rounds on recently published anthologies, edited collections, or other collective projects

As we consider our current moment of intensifying political conflict, resurgent nativism and racial and gender violence, retrenchment of anti-environmental policies, skyrocketing inequality, and attacks on public health, public lands, education, and the arts, Kalapuya ilihi offers a rich site to think collectively about the many pasts, presents, and, most crucially, future(s) that bring us together as guests and potential relatives on what was, is, and always will be Kalapuyan lands.

For more information, consult the conference website or contact 2026 WLA President Kirby Brown at wlaconference2026@westernlit.org. Skoden! Sdoodisden!