The 2026 Western Literature Association Conference  

August 26-29, 2026

The Graduate by Hilton Hotel in Eugene, Oregon

Deadline for Submissions: March 31, 2026

Deadline for Registration Payment: July 15, 2026

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. From the opening of the Oregon Trail in the 1830s to our present moment, the valley and its peoples have experienced dramatic social, cultural, economic, and ecological change, much of it captured in the multiple expressive forms of the peoples and communities who now call Kalapuya ilihi home. Though much of this history is inflected with conflict, violence, exploitation, and dispossession, these lands and waters also have been centers of Indigenous resistance and resurgence, environmental activism and stewardship, union and worker organizing, countercultural politics, LGBTQ activism, and anti-racist, anti-fascist, and anti-authoritarian resistance.

Reflecting these complexities, WLA 2026 welcomes proposals for papers, panels, roundtables, lightning rounds, structured conversations, and other formats on any aspect of literary and cultural productions of the “American West” (broadly conceived and complicated), with particular interest in the following topics:

• Indigenous literary and cultural productions, ecological knowledge, philosophies of kinship and responsibility; and theories of land, water, and interrelationality, especially those grounded in Kalapuya ilihi and the Pacific Northwest (PNW).
• Black, Asian, and Latinx histories of presence and influence
• 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, and national parks and public lands
• Memorialization, commemoration, and archival practice
• 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
• Presentations related to the work of 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)—and our featured artists—Steph Littlebird (Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde) and Arigon Starr (Kickapoo Nation).

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, the arts, and free speech, 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 about submissions, registration, hotel accommodations, and other details, please visit the conference website at https://westernlit.org/wla-conference-2026/or contact 2026 WLA President Kirby Brown at wlaconference2026@westernlit.org. Skoden! Sdoodisden!