The Native Writers' Circle of the Americas (NWCA) is an organization of Native American writers, most notable for its literary awards, presented annually to Native American writers in three categories: ''First Book of Poetry'', ''First Book of Prose'', and ''Lifetime Achievement''. The awards are voted upon by Native American writers, making it one of the few literary awards presented to Native Americans by Native Americans.
The Circle (along with its sister organization, the Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers) was formed as the outgrowth of the 1992 "Returning the Gift" Native Writers' Festival, a gathering of Native American writers from Canada, the United States, Mexico and the Central America. The NWCA maintains contact information for Native American writers and a collection of Native American literature. The organization has been hosted by the
University of Oklahoma
, mottoeng = "For the benefit of the Citizen and the State"
, type = Public research university
, established =
, academic_affiliations =
, endowment = $2.7billion (2021)
, pr ...
's department of Native American Studies and is currently housed in the Department of English.
Lifetime Achievement Awards
The Native Writers' Circle of the Americas awarded the following Native authors with Lifetime Achievement Awards:
*1992 N. Scott Momaday (
Kiowa
Kiowa () people are a Native American tribe and an indigenous people of the Great Plains of the United States. They migrated southward from western Montana into the Rocky Mountains in Colorado in the 17th and 18th centuries,Pritzker 326 and e ...
Acoma Pueblo
Acoma Pueblo (, kjq, Áakʼu) is a Native American pueblo approximately west of Albuquerque, New Mexico, in the United States. Four communities make up the village of Acoma Pueblo: Sky City (Old Acoma), Acomita, Anzac, and McCartys. These co ...
)
*1994
Leslie Marmon Silko
Leslie Marmon Silko (born Leslie Marmon; born March 5, 1948) is an American writer. A Laguna Pueblo Indian woman, she is one of the key figures in the First Wave of what literary critic Kenneth Lincoln has called the Native American Renaissance ...
(
Laguna Pueblo
The Laguna Pueblo ( Western Keres: Kawaika ʰɑwɑjkʰɑ is a federally recognized tribe of Native American Pueblo people in west-central New Mexico, near the city of Albuquerque, in the United States. Part of the Laguna territory is includ ...
Muscogee
The Muscogee, also known as the Mvskoke, Muscogee Creek, and the Muscogee Creek Confederacy ( in the Muscogee language), are a group of related indigenous (Native American) peoples of the Southeastern WoodlandsVine Deloria, Jr. (
Standing Rock Sioux
The Standing Rock Reservation ( lkt, Íŋyaŋ Woslál Háŋ) lies across the border between North and South Dakota in the United States, and is inhabited by ethnic " Hunkpapa and Sihasapa bands of Lakota Oyate and the Ihunktuwona and Pabaks ...
Blackfeet
The Blackfeet Nation ( bla, Aamsskáápipikani, script=Latn, ), officially named the Blackfeet Tribe of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation of Montana, is a federally recognized tribe of Siksikaitsitapi people with an Indian reservation in Mon ...
/
Gros Ventre
The Gros Ventre ( , ; meaning "big belly"), also known as the Aaniiih, A'aninin, Haaninin, Atsina, and White Clay, are a historically Algonquian-speaking Native American tribe located in north central Montana. Today the Gros Ventre people are ...
Chickasaw
The Chickasaw ( ) are an indigenous people of the Southeastern Woodlands. Their traditional territory was in the Southeastern United States of Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee as well in southwestern Kentucky. Their language is classif ...
)
*1999
Joseph Bruchac
Joseph Bruchac (born October 16, 1942) is an American writer and storyteller based in New York.
He writes about Indigenous peoples of the Americas, with a particular focus on northeastern Native American and Anglo-American lives and folklore. He ...
Louise Erdrich
Louise Erdrich ( ; born Karen Louise Erdrich, June 7, 1954) is an American author of novels, poetry, and children's books featuring Native American characters and settings. She is an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indian ...
Paula Gunn Allen
Paula Gunn Allen (October 24, 1939 – May 29, 2008) was a Native American poet, literary critic, activist, professor, and novelist. Of mixed-race European-American, Native American, and Arab-American descent, she identified with her mother's p ...
(
Laguna Pueblo
The Laguna Pueblo ( Western Keres: Kawaika ʰɑwɑjkʰɑ is a federally recognized tribe of Native American Pueblo people in west-central New Mexico, near the city of Albuquerque, in the United States. Part of the Laguna territory is includ ...
) and
Gerald Vizenor
Gerald is a male Germanic given name meaning "rule of the spear" from the prefix ''ger-'' ("spear") and suffix ''-wald'' ("rule"). Variants include the English given name Jerrold, the feminine nickname Jeri and the Welsh language Gerallt and ...
Maurice Kenny
Maurice Frank Kenny (August 16, 1929 – April 16, 2016) was an American poet who identified as Mohawk descent.
Life
Maurice Frank Kenny was born on August 16, 1929, in Watertown, New York. He identified his father as being of Mohawk and Iris ...
(self-identified
Mohawk Mohawk may refer to:
Related to Native Americans
* Mohawk people, an indigenous people of North America (Canada and New York)
*Mohawk language, the language spoken by the Mohawk people
* Mohawk hairstyle, from a hairstyle once thought to have been ...
/
Seneca
Seneca may refer to:
People and language
* Seneca (name), a list of people with either the given name or surname
* Seneca people, one of the six Iroquois tribes of North America
** Seneca language, the language of the Seneca people
Places Extrat ...
Quapaw
The Quapaw ( ; or Arkansas and Ugahxpa) people are a tribe of Native Americans that coalesced in what is known as the Midwest and Ohio Valley of the present-day United States. The Dhegiha Siouan-speaking tribe historically migrated from the Oh ...
/
Chickasaw
The Chickasaw ( ) are an indigenous people of the Southeastern Woodlands. Their traditional territory was in the Southeastern United States of Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee as well in southwestern Kentucky. Their language is classif ...
Laguna Pueblo
The Laguna Pueblo ( Western Keres: Kawaika ʰɑwɑjkʰɑ is a federally recognized tribe of Native American Pueblo people in west-central New Mexico, near the city of Albuquerque, in the United States. Part of the Laguna territory is includ ...
Luci Tapahonso
Luci Tapahonso (born November 8, 1953) is a Navajo poet and a lecturer in Native American Studies. She is the first poet laureate of the Navajo Nation, succeeded by Laura Tohe.
Early life and education
Tapahonso was born on the Navajo reservati ...
Sherman Alexie
Sherman Joseph Alexie Jr. (born October 7, 1966) is a Spokane- Coeur d'Alene-Native American novelist, short story writer, poet, screenwriter, and filmmaker. His writings draw on his experiences as an Indigenous American with ancestry from se ...
(
Spokane
Spokane ( ) is the largest city and county seat of Spokane County, Washington, United States. It is in eastern Washington, along the Spokane River, adjacent to the Selkirk Mountains, and west of the Rocky Mountain foothills, south of the Ca ...
Wilma Mankiller
Wilma Pearl Mankiller ( chr, ᎠᏥᎳᏍᎩ ᎠᏍᎦᏯᏗᎯ, Atsilasgi Asgayadihi; November 18, 1945April 6, 2010) was a Native American (Cherokee Nation) activist, social worker, community developer and the first woman elected to serve a ...
LeAnne Howe
LeAnne Howe (born April 29, 1951, Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma) is an American author and Eidson Distinguished Professor in the Department of English at the University of Georgia, Athens. She previously taught American Indian Studies and English ...
(
Choctaw Nation
The Choctaw Nation (Choctaw: ''Chahta Okla'') is a Native American territory covering about , occupying portions of southeastern Oklahoma in the United States. The Choctaw Nation is the third-largest federally recognized tribe in the United St ...
)
*2013 Donald L. Birchfield (
Choctaw Nation
The Choctaw Nation (Choctaw: ''Chahta Okla'') is a Native American territory covering about , occupying portions of southeastern Oklahoma in the United States. The Choctaw Nation is the third-largest federally recognized tribe in the United St ...
/
Chickasaw
The Chickasaw ( ) are an indigenous people of the Southeastern Woodlands. Their traditional territory was in the Southeastern United States of Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee as well in southwestern Kentucky. Their language is classif ...
)
*2014
Diane Glancy
(Helen) Diane Glancy (March 18, 1941) is an American poet, author, and playwright.
Life and career
Glancy was born in Kansas City, Missouri, to a Cherokee descent (non-enrolled) father, Lewis H. Hall, and an English-German-American mother. At a ...
Metis
Metis or Métis may refer to:
Ethnic groups
* Métis, recognized Indigenous communities in Canada and America whose distinct culture and language emerged after early intermarriage between First Nations peoples and early European settlers, prima ...
John Trudell
John Trudell (February 15, 1946December 8, 2015) was a Native American author, poet, actor, musician, and political activist. He was the spokesperson for the Indians of All Tribes' takeover of Alcatraz beginning in 1969, broadcasting as ''Radi ...
(
Santee Dakota
The Dakota (pronounced , Dakota language: ''Dakȟóta/Dakhóta'') are a Native American tribe and First Nations band government in North America. They compose two of the three main subcultures of the Sioux people, and are typically divided int ...
William S. Yellow Robe Jr.
William S. Yellow Robe Jr. (February 4, 1960 – July 19, 2021) was an Assiniboine people, Assiniboine actor, author, director, educator, playwright, and poet.
Life and career
A member of the Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes of the Fort Peck Indian ...
(
Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes of the Fort Peck Indian Reservation
The Fort Peck Indian Reservation ( asb, húdam wįcášta, dak, Waxchį́ca oyáte) is located near Fort Peck, Montana, in the northeast part of the state. It is the home of several federally recognized bands of Assiniboine, Nakota, Lakota, ...
)
*2019
Maria Campbell
Maria Campbell (born April 26, 1940 near Park Valley, Saskatchewan) is a Métis author, playwright, broadcaster, filmmaker, and Elder. Campbell is a fluent speaker of four languages: Cree, Michif, Western Ojibwa, and English. Four of her publis ...
Mohegan
The Mohegan are an Algonquian Native American tribe historically based in present-day Connecticut. Today the majority of the people are associated with the Mohegan Indian Tribe, a federally recognized tribe living on a reservation in the east ...
Assiniboine
The Assiniboine or Assiniboin people ( when singular, Assiniboines / Assiniboins when plural; Ojibwe: ''Asiniibwaan'', "stone Sioux"; also in plural Assiniboine or Assiniboin), also known as the Hohe and known by the endonym Nakota (or Nakod ...
), ''The Star Quilter'' (play, published in ''Where the Pavement Ends'')
*1993 Philip H. Red Eagle (Sioux-Klallam), ''Red Earth''
*1994 Gus Palmer, Jr. (
Kiowa
Kiowa () people are a Native American tribe and an indigenous people of the Great Plains of the United States. They migrated southward from western Montana into the Rocky Mountains in Colorado in the 17th and 18th centuries,Pritzker 326 and e ...
), ''Calling Through the Creek''
*1995 Glenn J. Twist ( Cherokee Nation/
Muscogee
The Muscogee, also known as the Mvskoke, Muscogee Creek, and the Muscogee Creek Confederacy ( in the Muscogee language), are a group of related indigenous (Native American) peoples of the Southeastern WoodlandsChickasaw
The Chickasaw ( ) are an indigenous people of the Southeastern Woodlands. Their traditional territory was in the Southeastern United States of Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee as well in southwestern Kentucky. Their language is classif ...
), ''Life With the Little People''
** D. L. Birchfield (
Choctaw Nation
The Choctaw Nation (Choctaw: ''Chahta Okla'') is a Native American territory covering about , occupying portions of southeastern Oklahoma in the United States. The Choctaw Nation is the third-largest federally recognized tribe in the United St ...
/
Chickasaw
The Chickasaw ( ) are an indigenous people of the Southeastern Woodlands. Their traditional territory was in the Southeastern United States of Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee as well in southwestern Kentucky. Their language is classif ...
Isleta Pueblo
Pueblo of Isleta ( tix, Shiewhibak , kjq, Dîiw'a'ane ; nv, Naatoohó ) is an unincorporated community and Tanoan pueblo in Bernalillo County, New Mexico, United States, originally established in the . The Southern Tiwa name of the pueblo ...
/
Ohkay Owingeh
Ohkay Owingeh ( Tewa: Ohkwee Ówîngeh ), known by its Spanish name as San Juan de los Caballeros from 1589 to 2005, is a pueblo and census-designated place (CDP) in Rio Arriba County, New Mexico. Ohkay Owingeh is also a federally recognized tribe ...
Quapaw
The Quapaw ( ; or Arkansas and Ugahxpa) people are a tribe of Native Americans that coalesced in what is known as the Midwest and Ohio Valley of the present-day United States. The Dhegiha Siouan-speaking tribe historically migrated from the Oh ...
), ''An Inquest Every Sunday''
*2003 Susan Supernaw (
Muscogee Creek
The Muscogee, also known as the Mvskoke, Muscogee Creek, and the Muscogee Creek Confederacy ( in the Muscogee language), are a group of related indigenous (Native American) peoples of the Southeastern WoodlandsMunsee
The Munsee (or Minsi or Muncee) or mə́n'si·w ( del, Monsiyok)Online Lenape Talking Dictionary, "Munsee Indians"Link/ref> are a subtribe of the Lenape, originally constituting one of the three great divisions of that nation and dwelling along ...
), ''The Power of a Name''
*2004 Kimberly G. Roppolo (self-identified mixed Southeastern American Indian ancestry), ''Back to the Blanket: Reading, Writing, and Resistance for American Indian Literary Critics''
*2005 Mia Heavener (Central
Yup'ik
The Yup'ik or Yupiaq (sg & pl) and Yupiit or Yupiat (pl), also Central Alaskan Yup'ik, Central Yup'ik, Alaskan Yup'ik ( own name ''Yup'ik'' sg ''Yupiik'' dual ''Yupiit'' pl; russian: Юпики центральной Аляски), are an I ...
), ''Tundra Berries''
*2006 Judy R. Smith (
Quinnipiac
Quinnipiac is the English name for the Eansketambawg (meaning "original people"; ''cf.'' Ojibwe: '' Anishinaabeg'' and Blackfoot: ''Niitsítapi''), a Quiripi-speaking Native American nation of the Algonquian family who inhabited the ''Wamp ...
/
Mohican
The Mohican ( or , alternate spelling: Mahican) are an Eastern Algonquian Native American tribe that historically spoke an Algonquian language. As part of the Eastern Algonquian family of tribes, they are related to the neighboring Lenape, who ...
), ''Yellowbird''
** Frederick White ( Haida), ''Welcome to the City of Rainbows''
*2007 Mary Lockwood (Malemuit Iñupiaq), ''Attugu Summa/Come and See What It Is''
*2008 Linda LeGarde Grover ( Chippewa, Bois Forte Band of Minnesota), "The Road Back to Sweetgrass"
*2009 JudyLee Oliva (
Chickasaw
The Chickasaw ( ) are an indigenous people of the Southeastern Woodlands. Their traditional territory was in the Southeastern United States of Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee as well in southwestern Kentucky. Their language is classif ...
), ''Te Ata and Other Plays''
*2018 no award given
Spokane
Spokane ( ) is the largest city and county seat of Spokane County, Washington, United States. It is in eastern Washington, along the Spokane River, adjacent to the Selkirk Mountains, and west of the Rocky Mountain foothills, south of the Ca ...
), ''Full Moon on the Reservation''
** Joe Dale Tate Nevaquaya (
Yuchi
The Yuchi people, also spelled Euchee and Uchee, are a Native American tribe based in Oklahoma.
In the 16th century, Yuchi people lived in the eastern Tennessee River valley in Tennessee. In the late 17th century, they moved south to Alabama, G ...
Kimberly Blaeser
Kimberly M. Blaeser (born 1955) is a Native American poet and writer enrolled in the White Earth Band of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe. She was the Wisconsin Poet Laureate 2015–16.
Background
Kimberly Blaeser was born in 1955 in Billings, Mont ...
Standing Rock Sioux
The Standing Rock Reservation ( lkt, Íŋyaŋ Woslál Háŋ) lies across the border between North and South Dakota in the United States, and is inhabited by ethnic " Hunkpapa and Sihasapa bands of Lakota Oyate and the Ihunktuwona and Pabaks ...
), ''Outlaws, Renegades and Saints''
*1995 Denise Sweet ( White Earth Chippewa), ''Songs for Discharming''
*1996 Charles G. Ballard (
Quapaw
The Quapaw ( ; or Arkansas and Ugahxpa) people are a tribe of Native Americans that coalesced in what is known as the Midwest and Ohio Valley of the present-day United States. The Dhegiha Siouan-speaking tribe historically migrated from the Oh ...
/
Cherokee
The Cherokee (; chr, ᎠᏂᏴᏫᏯᎢ, translit=Aniyvwiyaʔi or Anigiduwagi, or chr, ᏣᎳᎩ, links=no, translit=Tsalagi) are one of the indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, t ...
Abenaki
The Abenaki ( Abenaki: ''Wαpánahki'') are an Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands of Canada and the United States. They are an Algonquian-speaking people and part of the Wabanaki Confederacy. The Eastern Abenaki language was pre ...
/Huron descent), ''Billboard in the Clouds''
*2002 Renee Matthew ( Koyukon), ''Down River From Here''
** Phillip Caroll Morgan ( Choctaw-
Chickasaw
The Chickasaw ( ) are an indigenous people of the Southeastern Woodlands. Their traditional territory was in the Southeastern United States of Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee as well in southwestern Kentucky. Their language is classif ...
), ''The Fork-in-the-Road Indian Poetry Store''
*2003 Marlon D. Sherman ( Oglala Lakota), ''Wild Plums''
*2004 Christina M. Castro (
Jemez Pueblo
Jemez Pueblo (/ˈhɛmɛz/; tow, Walatowa, nv, Mąʼii Deeshgiizh) is a census-designated place (CDP) in Sandoval County, New Mexico, United States. The population was 1,788 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Albuquerque Metropolitan Statist ...
/
Taos Pueblo
Taos Pueblo (or Pueblo de Taos) is an ancient pueblo belonging to a Taos-speaking (Tiwa) Native American tribe of Puebloan people. It lies about north of the modern city of Taos, New Mexico. The pueblos are considered to be one of the oldest ...
Sac and Fox
The Sac and Fox Nation ( ''Mesquakie'' language: ''Othâkîwaki / Thakiwaki'' or ''Sa ki wa ki'') is the largest of three federally recognized tribes of Sauk and Meskwaki (Fox) Indian peoples. Originally from the Lake Huron and Lake Michigan ...
Chickasaw
The Chickasaw ( ) are an indigenous people of the Southeastern Woodlands. Their traditional territory was in the Southeastern United States of Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee as well in southwestern Kentucky. Their language is classif ...
), ''Picked Apart the Bones''
*2007 Kade L. Twist ( Cherokee Nation), ''Amazing Grace''
*2008 Steve Russell ( Cherokee Nation), ''Wicked Dew''
*2009 Rain Prud’homme-Cranford (Rain C. Goméz) (Louisiana Creole),''Smoked Mullet Cornbread Crawdad Memory''
*2018 Yulu Elwis (Kristen Debler) (
Coast Miwok
Coast Miwok are an indigenous people that was the second-largest group of Miwok people. Coast Miwok inhabited the general area of modern Marin County and southern Sonoma County in Northern California, from the Golden Gate north to Duncans Poi ...
/
Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria
The Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, formerly known as the Federated Coast Miwok, is a federally recognized American Indian tribe of Coast Miwok and Southern Pomo Indians. The tribe was officially restored to federal recognition in 2000 by th ...
), ''Opé''
See also
*
List of writers from peoples indigenous to the Americas
This is a list of notable writers who are Indigenous peoples of the Americas.
This list includes authors who are Alaskan Native, American Indian, First Nations, Inuit, Métis, and Indigenous peoples of Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America, ...