NAVAJO TREASURE

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.