The Desert Nights, Rising Stars
Writers Conference

Writing about the American West has moved well beyond literature of American Old West/Frontier narratives that were typically set from the late eighteenth to the late nineteenth century. A new understanding of contemporary western writing is emerging. Sometimes referred to as Postfrontier literature, the more recent literary output of the region tends to engage in a reinterpretation of the region, calling into question the ways in which it has been defined in the past. Looking at some contemporary postfrontier writers who are writing less traditional narratives about the frontier: Percival Everett, Claire Vaye Watkins, Michael Ondaatje, Sherman Alexie, Paisley Redkdal, Layli Long Soldier, Kirstin Valdez Quade, and Annie Proulx among others. We’ll talk about how the West is portrayed in these texts.