Western Literature Association—Student Information Page

Grads are warmly welcomed. The WLA is proud to be a "graduate-friendly" association, and the yearly meetings have a convivial, encouraging atmosphere where graduate students don't have to worry about feeling out of place.

Grads have got the numbers. The WLA has a significant graduate student contingency. Nearly 20% of its members are graduate students, many of whom are on their way to becoming life-long members.

Grads make professional connections. Students can rub elbows with some of the finest scholars and writers in the field. They can make professional connections that help them during their careers.

Grads make friends. Students can create close personal connections that keep them coming back to WLA year after year. Events like the special graduate student luncheon allow students to get to know each other, and students say they've made life-long friends at the WLA.

Grads are in the mainstream. Students are fully integrated into panels and events, instead of relegated to graduate-only events that run separate from the main conference. Often, students have the experience of being placed on panels next to the best scholars in the field.

Grads are represented. In recent years, the WLA has gone to greater lengths to ensure that the graduate student population feels that their professional concerns are being met. A graduate student representative sits on the association's Executive Council, the governing body that makes decisions related to the conference and the running of the association's journal Western American Literature.

Grads get career advice. The WLA cares about your academic future. Each conference meeting features a roundtable panel session on issues of professional development.

Grads get recognized. Each year the association recognizes excellence in grad student writing by awarding the J. Golden Taylor Award for Best Essay Submitted to the WLA Conference by a Graduate Student.

Grads can grow. The WLA fosters intellectual growth, for graduate students and full professors alike, within a supportive environment. Grads get to be part of a lively exchange of ideas within an energetic, dynamic organization.

Grads can have fun. The WLA's annual conference is held in a variety of locales, so that when participants aren't attending sessions, they can enjoy everything from fine art museums to spectacular nature trails. Organizers plan a host of events, including field trips, readings from world-renowned writers, a banquet and dance, and an annual comic play written and performed WLA members themselves.

Student Membership in the WLA

Graduate students are eligible for a discounted membership to the Western Literature Association ($25 for US students, $40 for Canadian or Mexican students, and $50 for students from outside of North America). The membership includes a subscription to the scholarly journal Western American Literature and a copy of the membership directory, updated every two years .

Please note that anyone presenting a paper at the annual conference must be a member of the WLA. If you’d like to become a member and/or subscriber, use our online form or download the pdf-file and send it to us at

Over the years, more and more graduate students have started attending the annual Western Literature Association Conference. Now every fifth member of the Western Literature Association is a graduate student. Therefore, since 2001, the association's Executive Council has included a Graduate Student Representative who is elected by the membership at large. Each graduate student representative serves a two-year term, and a new representative is elected during even numbered years.

If you are interested in submitting your name for nomination as Grad Student Representative (elected in even number years only), please contact the current WLA president. Note: The Graduate Student Rep is appointed for two years, and the Western Literature Association expects that appointment to be carried out. So please don’t nominate yourself or accept a nomination for Graduate Student Rep if you expect to finish your degree before the end of spring semester of your second year.

Would you like a place to network with other WLA graduate students? Just send a Facebook friend request to your Graduate Student Representative, Kerry Fine, and she will send you an invitation to join the Western Literature Association Grad Student Group. There you will be able to access message boards and wall posts in order to share your academic interests with other grad students, post academic inquiries, arrange conference room/ride sharing, and any other thing that you think would supplement your membership in WLA. The group is by invitation only in order to keep the posts and messages limited to its members.

WLA’s annual conference includes panel sessions where participants read scholarly or creative works related to western American literature and culture. Each paper presentation is allowed approximately 20 minutes (which is about 10 pages of double-spaced text).

If you need some instruction on how to write an abstract for a conference paper, check out the details provided here.

In 1984, the J. Golden Taylor Award for Best Essay Submitted to the WLA Conference by a Graduate Student was awarded for the very first time to Anne K. Phillips (now associate professor and assistant department head in English at Kansas State University). Named in honor of the first editor of Western American Literature, the Taylor Award is a prestigious award juried by a team of experts in the field and given annually to a work of scholarship submitted for the annual conference. Creative work is not considered for the Taylor; however, creative work may be submitted to the association's Manfred Prize, and graduate student participants have been successful in winning that in the past (see Manfred Award). For the Taylor, submit an abstract by the proposal deadline (usually in mid-June). Once your proposal has been accepted, submit the complete paper that you intend to give at the conference (not exceeding 15 pages) with a cover letter indicating that you wish to be considered for the Taylor Award to the conference president. The deadline for the completed paper is August 10. Note: the award can only be received once.

For information on writing an abstract, see the previous section (Submitting a Conference Paper). For information on how to submit an essay for consideration of the Taylor Award, click here.

These monetary awards are for graduate student presenters at the annual Western Literature Association Conference. They honor Louis Owens for his contributions to western American and American Indian literary studies, and for his unfailing generosity as a colleague, teacher, and mentor. The primary goal of the Louis Owens Awards is to build for the future of the Western Literature Association by encouraging diverse graduate student participation at the annual conference through assistance with conference-related expenses including travel and accommodation. While these awards are intended to foster greater cultural diversity within the WLA membership, they are also intended to help broaden—as Louis Owens did—the field of western American literary studies. Therefore, while preference will be given to graduate students who are members of cultural groups currently underrepresented within the WLA—including African Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans, Arab Americans, and Chicano/a Americans—these awards are also open to graduate students of ALL cultural backgrounds. One or two awards are usually available.

The prize consists of a combination of a cash award, free accommodation at the conference hotel, and a ticket to the conference banquet. The total value of the prize is approximately $750. To be eligible for this award, applicants must be registered as graduate students at the time of the conference. To apply, please submit the following materials to the address specified on the application form:

If you are interested in applying for this award, submit a paper proposal for participation in the conference by June 20. If your paper is accepted, you can then submit the above-mentioned award application materials by August 10.

In 2007, Grad Rep Angela Waldie organized WLA's first annual Graduate Student Professionalization Panel, a roundtable panel session in which fellow graduate students and experienced faculty members give brief remarks on career-related issues, and then the session is opened up for discussion among all those attending. Past professionalization panels have discussed why graduate students should aim to publish and ways they can do just that, how to maximize your time and effort when writing a thesis or dissertation, ways to conquer the first-time teacher jitters, transitioning from an MA program to a PhD program, and what to expect at your thesis or dissertation defense. To request a topic for the panel to cover, email your graduate representative, Kerry Fine.

For additional advice on a variety of professionalization issues, check out In Medias Res, an online newsletter for graduate students, edited by WLA member Evelyn Funda, Associate Professor of English at Utah State University. The newsletter is written by and for graduate students about their concerns regarding their professional lives. Topics in previous issues include advice on attending conferences (why, how many, and how), getting and benefiting from an internship, preparing a successful PhD application, guidelines for writing a CV, and a reprint of a wonderful essay by WLA's Distinguished Achievement Award winner Professor Patricia Limerick, entitled "Dancing with Professors: The Trouble with Academic Prose."

We’ve documented the good times we’ve had at recent Western Literature Association Conferences. Check out our photo albums. This is a great way to put names with faces of prominent writers/critics/professors/mentors in the field of western American literature and also to get a feel for how much fun we have at these conferences.

Besides hooking up with people who share your interests, you can be part of the annual dance after the banquet. And the Readers Theater usually has the audience (and often the players) in stitches.

In addition, there is an award for most humorous paper presented at the conference. Find out more about the Willa Pilla by attending the next Western Literature Association Conference. At left, you see Drucilla Wall, holding the pilla and wearing the hat after being given the award in 2005. She was a graduate student at the time.

Testimonials

The WLA instantly became my professional home from the very first conference I attended as a grad student. I loved (and still love) the friendliness of the Association, the fascinating range of work being done by members, and the spirit of fun that prevails at the annual conference. Compared to the WLA, other professional organizations seem stodgy. It is perennially inspiring to belong to an association where levity and brilliant work go hand in hand.

—Cheryll Glotfelty, Associate Professor, English Department, University of Nevada Reno

I won the Taylor Award the first year I attended WLA. I arrived, full of apprehension, a Westerner in an eastern graduate program, doing western literature more or less in isolation. During those few days in Eugene, many WLA members introduced themselves, and I began to develop the relationships that have sustained me intellectually for the past twenty-some years. That year, I met Cheryll Glotfelty, who won the Taylor the year before I did, and we have been WLA roomies ever since. Partially because of the Taylor Award and the folks who noticed my work that first year, I secured a string of publications, and the WLA members who helped me get published made me competitive on the job market. Over the years, WLA members have written job and tenure letters for me, they have reviewed my work, and they have stimulated me to do better work and many have become my friends. I can't overstate the importance of WLA to my career. I felt so welcomed as a graduate student that WLA has become my intellectual home.

—Nancy Cook, Associate Professor, English Department, University of Montana, Missoula

While I was a graduate student in American Studies, the Western Literature Association provided my first, and best, experience of academia as a true community of scholars. From the first time I attended a WLA conference, I was thrilled to be included in genuine dialogue with the experts in my field. Publications, important professional connections, and new research interests and teaching ideas have grown from my participation in WLA. And, the conferences are fun, as well as productive. WLA embodies the spirit of academic inquiry that is vital to me.

—Jenny Emery Davidson, Blaine County Center Director, College of Southern Idaho

From the first WLA Conference I attended, in Tucson, Arizona, I have been consistently impressed with the dedication of WLA members to mentoring graduate students. Graduate students are warmly welcomed and treated as valued colleagues in this academic community.

—Angela Waldie, PhD Candidate, University of Calgary

I first attended and presented at WLA at the 2007 conference in Tacoma, Washington. Imagine my shock as I began to present my paper on Willa Cather’s “Shadows on the Rock” in front of many top Cather scholars including Ann Romines and Robert Thacker (both of whom I had cited within my paper). I could not have been more thrilled than afterwards when they both talked to me and encouraged me not just as a graduate student but as a fellow scholar. Further contacts and friendships I have made have been so much better than our standard perception of “networking.” Throughout that conference and during my second year in attendance at WLA’s 2008 conference in Boulder, Colorado, I have continued to meet faculty in research areas that have helped me as I continue my doctoral studies. Due to the conversations and contacts made at WLA I have benefited greatly, including current work on a book chapter and journal article, further seminars, paper ideas, and professional opportunities. The Western Literature Association has proved to be an invaluable asset and I look forward to continuing to attend throughout my career.

—Jacqueline Harris, PhD Candidate, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Editorial Fellowships at USU

Since 1997, WLA's scholarly journal Western American Literature has offered graduate students enrolled in the graduate program at Utah State University a competitive stipend and the opportunity for training in the field of academic publishing. Two full editorial fellowships are available every year: the Thomas J. Lyon Fellowship, named in honor of the journal's second editor, and the Western Literature Association Fellowship are offered in alternate years. A third fellowship, the Marie Eccles Caine Foundation Book Review Fellowship (offered since 1998), is a part-time, editorial fellowship. These fellowships are opportunities for students who are looking for a master's program with an emphasis in western American literature or cultural studies. The editorial fellow has to be enrolled at Utah State University. If you are considering a second master's degree in this field, see below. If you know someone considering graduate work in western American studies, please refer them to this page. The editorial fellows are also eligible to apply for travel funding to attend the Western Literature Association Conference. After a WLA fellowship, students have gone on to

publish scholarly essays on such subjects as folklore, environmental literature, and Canadian literature
work as freelance editors
enroll in PhD programs
finish PhDs and start tenure-track positions at a university
become human resource directors
become public relations and marketing specialists
teach as adjunct faculty members in an English Department
launch an online humor magazine.

Learn more about our former fellows.

Funding for WAL fellowships is provided by the Western Literature Association and the English Department at Utah State University, with additional support from the Mountain West Center for Regional Studies and the College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at Utah State University as well as the Marie Eccles Caine Foundation.

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