WILLA Literary Award honors outstanding literature featuring women's stories, set in the Western United States, published each year. Women Writing the West (WWW), a non-profit association of writers and other professionals writing and promoting the Women's West, underwrites and presents the nationally recognized award annually.
The award is named in honor of Pulitzer Prize winner Willa Cather, one of the country's foremost novelists. The awards are presented at the WWW Fall Conference.
Year | Category | Book | Author | Contributor(s) |
---|---|---|---|---|
1999 [1] | Contemporary Fiction | Waltzing the Cat | Pam Houston | |
Historical Fiction | Daughter of Joy | JoAnn Levy | ||
Memoir/Essay | Writing Down the River | Kathleen Jo Ryan | ||
Nonfiction | Becoming Laura Ingalls Wilder | John Miller | ||
Young Adult Fiction | Riding Freedom | Pam Muñoz Ryan | ||
Children’s Fiction | Prairie Dog Pioneers | Jo Harper | ||
Original Paperback | River of Our Return | Gladys Smith | ||
2000 [2] | Contemporary Fiction | Close Range | Annie Proulx | |
Historical Fiction | Daughter of Fortune | Isabel Allende | ||
Memoir/Essay | Begosa Cabin | Mari Graña | ||
Nonfiction | Molly Brown: Unraveling the Myth | Kristen Iversen | ||
Young Adult Fiction | The Birchbark House | Louise Erdrich | ||
Children’s Fiction | Red Flower Goes West | Ann Turner | ||
Children’s Nonfiction | Children of the Gold Rush | Claire Murphy and Jane Haigh | ||
Original Paperback | Prophet Annie | Ellen Recknor | ||
2001 [3] | Contemporary Fiction | The Spirit Woman | Margaret Coel | |
Historical Fiction | For California’s Gold | JoAnn Levy | ||
Original Paperback | Dead Man Falls | Paula Boyd | ||
Memoir/Essay | One Degree West: Reflections of a Plainsdaughter | Julene Bair | ||
Children’s/Young Adult Fiction | Esperanza Rising | Pam Muñoz Ryan | ||
Poetry | Swan, What Shores? | Veronica Patterson | ||
2002 [4] | Contemporary Fiction | This House of Women | Paul Scott Malone | |
Historical Fiction | The Good Journey | Micaela Gilchrist | ||
Nonfiction | Eye of the Blackbird | Holly Skinner | ||
Memoir/Essay | She Flies Without Wings | Mary D. Midkiff | ||
Original Paperback | Across the Sweet Grass Hills | Gail Jenner | ||
Poetry | Blood Sister, I Am to These Fields | Linda Hussa | ||
Children’s/Young Adult | Cissy Funk | Kim Taylor Blakemore | ||
2003 [5] | Contemporary Fiction | Perma Red | Debra Magpie Earling | |
Historical Fiction | Enemy Women | Paulette Jiles | ||
Memoir/Essay | Breaking Clean | Judy Blunt | ||
Nonfiction | Mary Colter: Architect of the Southwest | Arnold Berke | ||
Original Paperback | Small Rocks Rising | Susan Lang | ||
Poetry | Miracles of Sainted Earth | Victoria Edwards Tester | ||
Children’s/Young Adult | Circle of Time | Marisa Montes | ||
2004 [6] | Contemporary Fiction | All Over Creation | Ruth Ozeki | |
Historical Fiction | Silver Lies | Ann Parker | ||
Memoir/Essay | Predators, Prey and Other Kinfolk | Dorothy Allred Solomon | ||
Nonfiction | Bold Spirit: Helga Estby’s Forgotten Walk Across Victorian America | Linda Lawrence Hunt | ||
Original Softcover | Deliverance Valley | Gladys Smith | ||
Poetry | Original Fire | Louise Erdrich | ||
Children’s/Young Adult | Rodzina | Karen Cushman | ||
2005 [7] | Memoir/Essay | Into the Canyon: Seven Years in Navajo Country | Lucy Moore | |
Nonfiction | Isabella Greenway: An Enterprising Woman | Kristie Miller | ||
Contemporary Fiction | The Real Minerva: A Novel | Mary Sharrat | ||
Historical Fiction | Tombstone Travesty: Allie Earp Remembers | Jane Candia Coleman | ||
Children’s/Young Adult Fiction & Nonfiction | Nothing Here but Stones | Nancy Oswald | ||
Original Softcover Fiction | Echoes | Erin Grady | ||
Poetry | I Am Madagascar | Ellen Waterston | ||
2006 [8] | Contemporary Fiction | Sky Bridge | Laura Pritchett | |
Historical Fiction | New Mercies | Sandra Dallas | ||
Original Softcover Fiction (Trade or Mass Market) | Summer of Fire | Linda Jacobs | ||
Children’s/Young Adult Fiction & Nonfiction | A Heart for Any Fate: Westward to Oregon, 1845 | Linda Crew | ||
Memoir/Essay | The Lady Rode Bucking Horses | Dee Marvine | ||
Other Nonfiction | Impertinences: Selected Writings of Elia Peattie | Susanne Bloomfield | ||
Poetry | Beasts in Snow | Jane Elkington Wohl | ||
2007 [9] | Contemporary Fiction | The Girl from Charnelle | K. L. Cook | |
Creative Nonfiction | Montana Women Writers: Geography of the Heart | Caroline Patterson, Editor with introduction, Sue Hart | ||
Scholarly Nonfiction | Revolutionary Heart: The Life of Clarina Nichols and the Pioneering Crusade for Women’s Rights | Diane Eickhoff | ||
Historical Fiction | The Night Journal | Elizabeth Crook | ||
Poetry | To Sing Along the Way: Minnesota Women Poets from Pre-Territorial Days to the Present | Connie Wanek, Joyce Sutphen, Thom Tammaro, Editors | ||
Original Softcover Fiction (Trade or Mass Market) | Hallowed Ground | Lori G. Armstrong | ||
Children’s/Young Adult Fiction & Nonfiction | Harvey Girl | Sheila Wood Foard | ||
2008 [10] | Contemporary Fiction | What the Thunder Said | Janet Peery | |
Creative Nonfiction | What Wildness Is This: Women Write About the Southwest | Susan Wittig Albert, Susan Hanson, Jan Epton Seale, Paula Stallings Yost, Editors | ||
Scholarly Nonfiction | Laura Ingalls Wilder: A Writer’s Life | Pamela Smith Hill | ||
Historical Fiction | Harp Song | Rilla Askew | ||
Poetry | Raven Eye | Margo Tamez | ||
Original Softcover Fiction (Trade or Mass Market) | A Tendering in the Storm | Jane Kirkpatrick | ||
Children’s/Young Adult Fiction & Nonfiction | Exiled: From Tragedy to Triumph on the Missouri Frontier | Louise A Jackson | ||
2009 [11] | Contemporary Fiction | The Last Cowgirl | Jana Richman | |
Creative Nonfiction | Salt in Our Blood: The Memoir of a Fisherman’s Wife | Michele Longo Eder | ||
Scholarly Nonfiction | Full Court Quest: The Girls from Fort Shaw Indian School, Basketball Champions of the World | Linda Peavy and Ursula Smith | ||
Historical Fiction | Charley’s Choice: The Life and Times Of Charley Parkhurst | Fern J. Hill | ||
Poetry | Between Desert Seasons | Ellen Waterston | ||
Original Softcover Fiction (Trade or Mass Market) | Buffalo Bill’s Defunct: A Latouche County Mystery | Sheila Simonson | ||
Children’s/Young Adult Fiction & Nonfiction | Dreams on the Oregon Trail | Barbara Linsley | ||
2010 [12] | Contemporary Fiction | Wild Sorrow | Sandi Ault | |
Creative Nonfiction | No Place Like Home: Notes from a Western Life | Linda Hasselstrom | ||
Scholarly Nonfiction | Dorothea Lange: A Life Beyond Limits | Linda Gordon | ||
Historical Fiction | My Name Is Falon: One Woman’s Saga from Scotland to the Texas Frontier | Kim Wiese | ||
Poetry | Work Is Love Made Visible | Jeanetta Calhoun Mish | ||
Original Softcover Fiction (Trade or Mass Market) | A Flickering Light | Jane Kirkpatrick | ||
Children’s/Young Adult Fiction & Nonfiction | Hellie Jondoe | Randall Platt | ||
2011 [13] | Contemporary Fiction | Unbroken | Jamie Lisa Forbes | |
Historical Fiction | Take Me Home | Brian Leung | ||
Original Softcover Fiction | Light on a Distant Hill | B. J. Scott | ||
Creative Nonfiction | To the Woods: Sinking Roots, Living Lightly, and Finding True Home | Evelyn Searle Hess | ||
Scholarly Nonfiction | A Force for Change: Beatrice Morrow Cannady and the Struggle for Civil Rights in Oregon, 1912–1936 | Kimberley Mangun | ||
Poetry | Blood Desert: Witnesses, 1820–1880 | Renny Golden | ||
Children’s/Young Adult Fiction & Nonfiction | Follow the Dream | Heidi M. Thomas | ||
2012 [14] | Contemporary Fiction | Raising Wrecker | Summer Wood | |
Historical Fiction | The Bride’s House | Sandra Dallas | ||
Original Softcover Fiction | The American Café | Sara Sue Hoklotubbe | ||
Creative Nonfiction | Rightful Place | Amy Hale Auker | ||
Scholarly Nonfiction | Recollecting: Lives of Aboriginal Women of the Canadian Northwest and Borderlands | Sarah Carter and Patricia McCormack, Editors | ||
Poetry | Married into It | Patricia Frolander | ||
Children’s/Young Adult Fiction & Nonfiction | The Year We Were Famous | Carole Estby Dagg | ||
2013 [15] | Contemporary Fiction | Theft | BK Loren | |
Historical Fiction | True Sisters | Sandra Dallas | ||
Original Softcover Fiction | The Bones and the Book | Jane Isenberg | ||
Creative Nonfiction | Kissed by a Fox: And Other Stories of Friendship in Nature | Priscilla Stuckey | ||
Scholarly Nonfiction | Women in Wonderland: Lives, Legends, and Legacies of Yellowstone National Park | Elizabeth A. Watry | ||
Poetry | Steam Laundry | Nicole Stellon O’Donnell | ||
Children’s/Young Adult Fiction & Nonfiction | Liberty’s Christmas | Randall Platt | ||
2014 [16] | Contemporary Fiction | Bone Horses | Leslie Poling-Kempes | |
Historical Fiction | Dollybird | Anne Lazurko | ||
Original Softcover Fiction | Junction, Utah | Rebecca Lawton | ||
Creative Nonfiction | Gaining Daylight: Life on Two Islands | Sara Loewen | ||
Scholarly Nonfiction | Trail Sisters: Freedwomen in Indian Territory, 1850–1890 | Linda Williams Reese | ||
Poetry | Losing the Ring in the River | Marge Saiser | ||
Children’s/Young Adult Fiction & Nonfiction | Written in Stone | Rosanne Parry | ||
2015 [17] | Contemporary Fiction | Point of Direction | Rachel Weaver | |
Historical Fiction | A Quilt for Christmas | Sandra Dallas | ||
Original Softcover Fiction | A Light in the Wilderness | Jane Kirkpatrick | ||
Creative Nonfiction | Diary of a Citizen Scientist | Sharman Apt Russell | ||
Scholarly Nonfiction | Quite Contrary: The Litigious Life of Mary Bennett Love | David J. Langum Sr. | ||
Poetry | The Secret Life of Us Kids | Bonnie B. Maldonado | ||
Children’s/Young Adult Fiction & Nonfiction | Searching for Silver Heels | Jeannie Mobley | ||
2016 [18] | Contemporary Fiction | Firebreak | Tricia Fields | |
Scholarly Nonfiction | Ladies of the Canyons: A League of Extraordinary Women and Their Adventures in the American Southwest | Lesley Poling-Kempes | ||
Historical Fiction | The Bookseller | Cynthia Swanson | ||
Poetry | Report to the Department of the Interior: Poems | Diane Glancy | ||
Original Softcover Fiction | Hidden Shadows | Linda Lucretia Schuler | ||
Children's / Young Adult Fiction & Nonfiction | Shadow of the Hawk | K. S. Jones | ||
Creative Nonfiction | American Ghost: A Family's Haunted Past in the Desert Southwest | Hannah Nordhaus | ||
2017 [19] | Contemporary Fiction | Piano Tide | Kathleen Dean Moore | |
Scholarly Nonfiction | Soap Suds Row: The Bold Lives of Army Laundresses 1802-1876 | Jennifer J. Lawrence | ||
Historical Fiction | Basque Moon | Julie Whitesel Weston | ||
Poetry | Demimonde | Kierstin Bridger | ||
Original Softcover Fiction | Beloved Over All: Historical Fiction | Irene Sandell | ||
Children's / Young Adult Fiction & Nonfiction | Soldier Sister, Fly Home | Nancy Bo Flood | ||
Creative Nonfiction | Fast into the Night: A Woman, Her Dogs, and Their Journey North on the Iditarod Trail | Debbie Clarke Moderow | ||
2018 [20] | Contemporary Fiction | Zetty | Debra Whiting Alexander | |
Scholarly Nonfiction | Peace Weavers: Uniting the Salish Coast Through Cross-Cultural Marriages | Candace Wellman | ||
Historical Fiction | Stranded: A Story of Frontier Survival | Matthew P. Mayo | ||
Poetry | Rock Tree Bird | Twyla M. Hansen | ||
Original Softcover Fiction | Hidden Ones: A Veil of Memories | Marcia Fine | ||
Children's / Young Adult Fiction & Nonfiction | The Tragically True Adventures of Kit Donovan | Patricia Bailey | ||
Creative Nonfiction | Women Artists of the Great Basin | Mary Lee Fulkerson | Susan E Mantle | |
2019 [21] | Contemporary Fiction | The Flicker of Old Dreams | Susan Henderson | |
Scholarly Nonfiction | Beyond the Rebel Girl: Women and the Industrial Workers of the World in the Pacific Northwest, 1905-1924 | Heather Mayer | ||
Historical Fiction | The Which Way Tree | Elizabeth Crook | ||
Poetry | Coming Out of Nowhere | Linda Schandelmeier | ||
Original Softcover Fiction | See Also Proof | Larry D. Sweazy | ||
Children's Fiction & Nonfiction | Hard Scrabble | Sandra Dallas | ||
Creative Nonfiction | My Ranch Too | Mary Budd Flitner | ||
Young Adult Fiction & Nonfiction | The Communing Tree | Theresa Verboort | ||
2020 [22] | Contemporary Fiction | The Lager Queen of Minnesota | J. Ryan Stradal | |
Historical Fiction | The Glovemaker: A Novel | Ann Weisgarber | ||
Original Softcover Fiction | The Red Dirt Hymnbook | Roxie Faulkner Kirk | ||
Creative Nonfiction | I Am a Stranger Here Myself | Debra Gwartney | ||
Scholarly Nonfiction | Arequipa Sanatorium: Life in California’s Lung Resort for Women | Lynn Downey | ||
Poetry | We Make a Tiny Herd: Poems to Honor the Burro Lady of Far West Texas | Lucy Griffith | ||
Children’s Fiction & Nonfiction | (Tie) Someplace to Call Home | Sandra Dallas | ||
Children’s Fiction & Nonfiction | (Tie) The Seagirls of the Irene | KB Taylor | ||
Young Adult Fiction & Nonfiction | Professor Renoir’s Collection of Oddities, Curiosities, and Delights | Randall Platt | ||
2021 [23] | Contemporary Fiction | Hanging Falls: A Timber Creek K-9 Mystery | Margaret Mizushima | |
Historical Fiction | Wild Rivers, Wild Rose | Sarah Birdsall | ||
Original Softcover Fiction | 142 Ostriches | April Dávila | ||
Creative Nonfiction | Miracle Country: A Memoir of a Family and a Landscape | Kendra Atleework | ||
Scholarly Nonfiction | Ours by Every Law of Right and Justice: Women and the Vote in the Prairie Provinces | Sarah Carter | ||
Poetry | Second Wind | Patricia Frolander | ||
Children’s Fiction & Nonfiction | The Girl Who Moved to the Town That Wasn’t There | Suzanne Hovik Fuller | ||
Young Adult Fiction & Nonfiction | Taylor Before and After | Jennie Englund | ||
2022 [24] | Multiform Fiction | Striking Range: A Timber Creek K-9 Mystery | Margaret Mizushima | |
Historical Fiction | The Children’s Blizzard | Melanie Benjamin | ||
Romance | A Texas Christmas Miracle | Justine Davis | ||
Creative Nonfiction | The Forgotten Botanist | Sarah Plummer | ||
Scholarly Nonfiction | Sally in Three Worlds: An Indian Captive in the House of Brigham Young | Virginia Kerns | ||
Poetry | Sometimes a Woman | Kimberly K. Williams | ||
Children’s Fiction & Nonfiction | Headstrong Hallie!: The Story of Hallie Morse Daggett, the First Female “Fire Guard” | Aimée Bissonette | ||
Young Adult Fiction & Nonfiction | Runaway Moon | Carole T. Beers | ||
2023 [25] | Multiform Fiction | Happy for You: A Novel | Claire Stanford | |
Historical Fiction | Woman of Light | Kali Fajardo-Anstine | ||
Romance | Henley | Shanna Hatfield | ||
Creative Nonfiction | Brave Hearted: The Women of the American West | Katie Hickman | ||
Scholarly Nonfiction | The Widowed Ones: Beyond the Battle of the Little Bighorn | Chris Enss and Howard Kazanjian with Chris Kortlander | ||
Children’s Fiction & Nonfiction | The Other Side of the River | Alda P. Dobbs | ||
Young Adult Fiction & Nonfiction | Meg and the Rocks | Katy Hammel | ||
Poetry | Prairie Midden | Athena Kildegaard | ||
Willa Sibert Cather was an American writer known for her novels of life on the Great Plains, including O Pioneers!, The Song of the Lark, and My Ántonia. In 1923, she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for One of Ours, a novel set during World War I.
The Governor General's Award for English-language non-fiction is a Canadian literary award that annually recognizes one Canadian writer for a non-fiction book written in English. Since 1987 it is one of fourteen Governor General's Awards for Literary Merit, seven each for creators of English- and French-language books. Originally presented by the Canadian Authors Association, the Governor General's Awards program became a project of the Canada Council for the Arts in 1959.
The Governor General's Award for English-language children's writing is a Canadian literary award that annually recognizes one Canadian writer for a children's book written in English. It is one of four children's book awards among the Governor General's Awards for Literary Merit, one each for writers and illustrators of English- and French-language books. The Governor General's Awards program is administered by the Canada Council.
The Governor General's Award for English-language children's illustration is a Canadian literary award that annually recognizes one Canadian illustrator for a children's book written in English. It is one of four children's book awards among the Governor General's Awards for Literary Merit, one each for writers and illustrators of English- and French-language books. The Governor General's Awards program is administered by the Canada Council.
Rilla Askew is an American novelist and short story writer who was born in Poteau, in the Sans Bois Mountains of southeastern Oklahoma, and grew up in the town of Bartlesville, Oklahoma.
Janet Peery is an American short story writer and novelist.
PEN/Open Book is a program intended to foster racial and ethnic diversity within the literary and publishing communities, and works to establish access for diverse literary groups to the publishing industry. Created in 1991 by the PEN American Center, the PEN/Open Book program ensures custodians of language and literature are representative of the American people.
Ruth Ozeki is an American-Canadian author, filmmaker and Zen Buddhist priest. Her books and films, including the novels My Year of Meats (1998), All Over Creation (2003), A Tale for the Time Being (2013), and The Book of Form and Emptiness (2021) seek to integrate personal narrative and social issues, and deal with themes relating to science, technology, environmental politics, race, religion, war and global popular culture. Her novels have been translated into more than thirty languages. She teaches creative writing at Smith College where she is the Grace Jarcho Ross 1933 Professor of Humanities in the Department of English Language and Literature.
Lee Lynch is an American author writing primarily on lesbian themes, specifically noted for authentic characterizing of butch and femme characters in fiction. She is the recipient of a Golden Crown Literary Society Trail Blazer award for lifetime achievement, as well as being the namesake for the Golden Crown Literary Society's Lee Lynch Classics Award.
Bernardine Anne Mobolaji Evaristo is a British author and academic. Her novel Girl, Woman, Other jointly won the Booker Prize in 2019 alongside Margaret Atwood's The Testaments, making her the first Black woman to win the Booker. Evaristo is Professor of Creative Writing at Brunel University London and President of the Royal Society of Literature, the second woman and the first black person to hold the role since it was founded in 1820.
The PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award is awarded by the PEN America for writing that exemplifies literary excellence on the subject of physical and biological sciences. The award includes a cash prize of $10,000.
The Stella Prize is an Australian annual literary award established in 2013 for writing by Australian women in all genres, worth $50,000. It was originally proposed by Australian women writers and publishers in 2011, modelled on the UK's Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction.
Hannah Kent is an Australian writer, known for two novels – Burial Rites (2013) and The Good People (2016). Her third novel, Devotion, was published in 2021.
Ann Parker is a writer, and was a finalist for Best Historical Novel in the 2011 Agatha Award. Her novel Silver Lies won the 2004 WILLA Literary Award in Historical Fiction. She studied at the University of California, Berkeley.
Funny Women is an online and in-person workshop community dedicated to the support of female comedians. It was founded by Lynne Parker in 2002 as a reaction to misogynistic comments from a comedy promoter. Funny Women helps women find their voice, promote them, and assists charities.
Robin Coste Lewis is an American poet, artist, and scholar. She is known primarily for her debut poetry collection, Voyage of the Sable Venus and Other Poems, which won the National Book Award for Poetry in 2015––the first time a poetry debut by an African-American had ever won the prize in the National Book Foundation's history, and the first time any debut had won the award since 1974. Critics called the collection "A masterpiece", "Surpassing imagination, maturity, and aesthetic dazzle", "remarkable hopefulness ... in the face of what would make most rage and/or collapse", "formally polished, emotionally raw, and wholly exquisite". Voyage of the Sable Venus was also a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize, the Hurston-Wright Award, and the California Book Award. The Paris Review, The New Yorker, The New York Times, Buzz Feed, and Entropy Magazine all named Voyage one of the best poetry collections of the year. Flavorwire named the collection one of the 10 must-read books about art. And Literary Hub named Voyage one of the "Most Important Books of the Last Twenty Years". In 2018, MoMA commissioned both Lewis and Kevin Young to write a series of poems to accompany Robert Rauschenberg's drawings in the book Thirty-Four Illustrations of Dante's Inferno. Lewis is also the author of Inhabitants and Visitors, a chapbook published by Clockshop and the Huntington Library and Museum. Her next book, To the Realization of Perfect Helplessness, was published by Knopf in 2022.
Louise Bernice Halfe, is a Cree poet and social worker from Canada. Halfe's Cree name is Sky Dancer. At the age of seven, she was forced to attend Blue Quills Residential School in St. Paul, Alberta. Halfe signed with Coteau Books in 1994 and has published four books of poetry: Bear Bones & Feathers (1994), Blue Marrow (1998/2005), The Crooked Good (2007) and Burning in this Midnight Dream (2016). Halfe uses code-switching, white space, and the stories of other Cree women in her poetry. Her experience at Blue Quills continues to influence her work today. Halfe's books have been well-received and have won multiple awards.
Matthew P. Mayo is an American author of novels and non-fiction books, poetry, short stories, articles, and reviews. He writes about the American West, New England, and in the Western, humor, crime, and horror genres.
Sabrina & Corina: Stories. penguin random house. 2019.
Dawn Quigley is an author and educator. She is an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibwe, North Dakota.