The Waterston Desert Writing Prize (the Prize) was established in 2014 and inspired by author and poet Ellen Waterston’s love of the High Desert, a region that has been her muse for more than 40 years. Waterston was named Oregon Poet Laureate in August 2024 for a two-year term. The Prize provides financial and other support to writers whose work reflects a similar connection to the desert, recognizing the vital role deserts play worldwide in the ecosystem and the human narrative.
In 2025, the Prize will recognize the winner with a $3,000 cash award and a reading and reception at the High Desert Museum in Bend, Oregon on September 25, 2025. Proposals will be reviewed by the Waterston Desert Writing Prize Advisory Committee and the 2025 guest judge, Beth Piatote.
The Submission Period is now closed.
Who’s Eligible to Apply
Nonfiction writers who illustrate artistic excellence, sensitivity to place and desert literacy with the desert as both subject and setting. The award supports literary nonfiction writers who are completing, proposing, or considering the creation of a book-length manuscript. It is recommended the writing sample submitted is part of the proposed project or closely represents it in content and style.
2025 Guest Judge Beth Piatote
Beth Piatote (Nez Perce, Colville Confederated Tribes) is a writer, professor and language activist. She 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). NPR featured The Beadworkers on its programming, and the book was selected as the “one read” for multiple university and community programs. She has written multiple 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. Beth is dedicated to Nez Perce language and literature and co-founded the Designated Emphasis in Indigenous Language Revitalization at UC Berkeley.
Piatote is an associate professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkley. She has served as a guest judge on multiple literary award panels including the PEN America and the Poetry Foundation.
2025 Keynote Speaker Dan Flores
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.
Questions? Please direct questions to waterston@highdesertmuseum.org