Western Writers of America to Honor Tony Hillerman for Lifetime Contribution

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M., Jan. 22 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Best-selling novelist
Tony Hillerman, author of the critically acclaimed mystery series set on the
Navajo Nation, will receive the Owen Wister Award for lifetime contribution to
Western literature, Western Writers of America has announced.

Hillerman will be honored June 14 at Chaparral Suites in Scottsdale, Ariz.,
during the organization's annual convention. The nonprofit Western Writers of
America was founded in 1953 to promote and recognize literature of the
American West.

"Tony Hillerman is truly a national treasure, bringing all of us wonderful
stories of the modern West while giving us memorable glimpses of the
distinctive ways of the Navajo Nation," WWA President Cotton Smith says.
"Western Writers of America is proud to present him with the Owen Wister Award
for lifetime achievement."

Hillerman, 82, is no stranger to Western Writers of America. He has won two
Spur Awards from WWA for Best Western Novel, for SKINWALKERS in 1987 and THE
SHAPE SHIFTER last year. A native of Oklahoma, Hillerman has also received the
Edgar and Grand Master awards from Mystery Writers of America, the Los Angeles
TimesRobert Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement, the Center for the American
Indian's Ambassador Award and the Navajo Tribes Special Friend Award.

"Of all the people I'd like to be recognized by, the Western writers are it
because I'm a Western writer," Hillerman says from his Albuquerque home.

Past winners of the Owen Wister Award, previously called the Levi Strauss
Saddleman Award, include Matt Braun, Don Coldsmith, Max Evans, A.B. Guthrie
Jr., John Jakes, Dorothy M. Johnson, Elmer Kelton, Louis L'Amour, Mari Sandoz
and Robert M. Utley.

For convention and membership information on Western Writers of America, log
on to www.westernwriters.org, or write WWA, MSC06 3770, 1 University of New
Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131-0001.

SOURCE Western Writers of America, Inc.

Melody Groves of Western Writers of America, +1-505-298-3022,
melodygroves@comcast.net