Submission Window Open Through May 1 For The Waterston Desert Writing Prize (Photo) -04/21/25
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Monday, April 21, 2025
Authors Beth Piatote, Dan Flores will be part of the award ceremony
BEND, OR — Time is running out! Writers exploring themes around desert landscapes are invited to enter the 11th annual Waterston Desert Writing Prize. The submission window is open now through May 1, 2025, at 11:59 pm.
This prestigious award, a program of the High Desert Museum, celebrates proposals for outstanding literary nonfiction dedicated to the literal and figurative exploration of desert landscapes.
This year’s winner will receive a $3,000 cash award and be recognized with a reception and reading at the Museum in Bend, Oregon, on September 25, 2025. Tickets are available now at highdesertmuseum.org/waterston-award-ceremony-2025.
“The Waterston Desert Writing Prize is now in its 11th year of celebrating desert regions and landscapes,” said Executive Director Dana Whitelaw, Ph.D. “These works recognize the vital role deserts play and have been engaging, eloquent reads. We look forward to seeing what this year’s submissions tell us.”
Serving as guest judge this year is Beth Piatote (Nez Perce, Colville Confederated Tribes). Writer, professor and language activist, Piatote is the author of two books: the scholarly monograph Domestic Subjects: Gender, Citizenship, and the Law in Native American Literature (2013) and a mixed-genre collection entitled The Beadworkers: Stories (2019). She has written a number of plays, including a Native American retelling of the ancient Greek play, Antigone. Antikoni premiered at the Autry Museum of the American West in Los Angeles in 2024. Piatote is an associate professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkley. She has served as a guest judge on literary award panels including the PEN America and the Poetry Foundation.
Dan Flores, Ph.D., will serve as the 2025 keynote speaker. Originally from Louisiana but now based near Santa Fe, New Mexico, Flores was the A.B. Hammond Professor of the History of the American West at the University of Montana. A prolific writer with 11 books to his name, Flores’s most recent works were 2023 Rachel Carson Book Prize winner Wild New World: The Epic Story of Animals and People in America and New York Times bestseller, Coyote America: A Natural and Supernatural History (2016). His essays have appeared in newspapers and magazines across the country including The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and Time Magazine. Flores focuses on nature writing and the biographies of animals. His work has earned him honors from Pen America, the Society of Environmental Journalists, the Sigurd Olsen Nature Writing Awards, the Great Plains Distinguished Book Awards, the National Outdoor Book Awards, and Phi Beta Kappa's Ralph Waldo Emerson Prizes.
The Prize was established in 2014, inspired by author and Oregon Poet Laureate Ellen Waterston’s love of the High Desert — a region that has been her muse for more than 40 years. The Waterston Desert Writing Prize celebrates writers whose nonfiction book proposal reflects a similar connection to a desert anywhere in the world.
“The tangible encouragement and important literary recognition the Prize provides gives the winner a needed boost on the way to realizing their proposed project,” said Waterston. “The Prize brings to light new perspectives on a wide range of desert-related topics, from the desertification of a reef in the ocean, the adaptability of certain desert flora and fauna, the effect of rising temperatures on particular life forms, or the timeless call of deserts worldwide as the place to meet oneself head on.”
Emerging, mid-career and established nonfiction writers who illustrate artistic excellence, sensitivity to place and desert literacy with the desert as both subject and setting are invited to apply. The award supports literary nonfiction writers who are completing, proposing or considering the creation of a book-length manuscript. It is recommended that the writing sample submitted is part of the proposed project or closely represents it in content and style.
Past winners of the Prize include Leath Tonino (2024), Anna Welch (2023) and Caroline Tracey (2022). A full-time freelance writer, Tonino’s submission Nooks and Crannies: Mapping the (Unmappable) Waterpocket Fold with Prose Vignettes is a documentation of his outdoor encounters in Utah’s Waterpocket Fold, the sandstone that forms the spine of Capitol Reef National Park. He was joined by keynote speaker Tucker Malarkey and guest judge Sam Waterston.
To learn more about the Waterston Desert Writing Prize and how to submit an entry, visit highdesertmuseum.org/waterston-prize.
ABOUT THE MUSEUM:
THE HIGH DESERT MUSEUM opened in Bend, Oregon in 1982. It brings together wildlife, cultures, art, history and the natural world to convey the wonder of North America’s High Desert. The Museum is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization accredited by the American Alliance of Museums, is a Smithsonian Affiliate, was the 2019 recipient of the Western Museums Association’s Charles Redd Award for Exhibition Excellence and was a 2021 recipient of the National Medal for Museum and Library Service. To learn more, visit highdesertmuseum.org and follow us on Facebook and Instagram.
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