ALBUQUERQUE, N.M., Feb. 9 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Elmore Leonard, who mastered the Western in novels such as HOMBRE and short stories like "The Boy Who Smiled" and "The Tonto Woman," will receive the Owen Wister Award for lifetime contribution to Western literature, Western Writers of America has announced.
Leonard will be honored June 20 at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City during the annual convention of Western Writers of America, a nonprofit organization founded in 1953 to promote and recognize literature of the American West.
Leonard, who lives in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, said he was surprised but thrilled at receiving the Owen Wister Award.
"I love the Western genre," he said, "and writing them was a great way to learn to write."
Before turning to crime novels such as BANDITS, GET SHORTY and TOSHOMINGO BLUES, Leonard honed his craft with edgy Westerns. Argosy published his first short story in 1951. Other tales followed in magazines such as Dime Western, 10 Story Western and Zane Grey's Western. His story "The Captives" became THE TALL T, a highly regarded movie starring Randolph Scott in 1957. That same year, Leonard's "Three-Ten to Yuma" was turned into 3:10 TO YUMA, starring Glenn Ford and Van Heflin, and was remade in 2007 with Russell Crowe and Christian Bale in the lead roles.
Leonard's first novel was THE BOUNTY HUNTERS in 1953. Other titles followed, including THE LAW AT RANDADO, ESCAPE FROM FIVE SHADOWS, FORTY LASHES LESS ONE and GUNSIGHTS. HOMBRE became a hit movie starring Paul Newman in 1967. VALDEZ IS COMING and LAST STAND AT SABER RIVER also were turned into movies, the latter a TV film with Tom Selleck.
"Elmore Leonard has had a tremendous impact on the Western and crime genres," WWA president Johnny D. Boggs said. "He has always been a gifted storyteller, and never afraid to take chances. That's why his Westerns remain in print decades after they were first published, and why anthologies of his short Western fiction fill bookshelves. Recognition from Western Writers of America is long overdue."
Past winners of the Owen Wister Award, previously called the Levi Strauss Saddleman Award, include A.B. Guthrie Jr., John Jakes, Dorothy M. Johnson, Elmer Kelton, Louis L'Amour, Mari Sandoz and Tony Hillerman.
For more information on WWA, log on to www.westernwriters.org, or write WWA, MSC06 3770, 1 University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131-0001.
