The Native Writers Circle of the Americas (NWCA) is an Indigenous literary organization dedicated to supporting, recognizing, and sustaining Native writers across generations, genres, and communities.

NWCA traces its beginnings to the historic 1992 Returning the Gift Native Writers’ Festival, which brought together Native writers from across the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Central America. From that gathering emerged a circle committed to the recognition of Native literature.

For more than three decades, NWCA has helped recognize the breadth and vitality of Native writing. Its literary awards have included First Book Awards in Poetry and Prose and a Lifetime Achievement Award honoring writers whose work has made lasting contributions to Native letters.

At the heart of this history is a simple but consequential principle: Native writers recognizing Native writers.

A New Chapter

NWCA is now entering a period of renewal.

Under new stewardship, the organization is returning to its history while considering what a Native writers’ circle can and should be today. This work includes recovering and preserving NWCA’s institutional history, renewing relationships with writers and communities, strengthening its organizational foundation, and imagining new programs and opportunities for Native writers.

Some of that work will involve returning to what has always mattered: gathering, recognition, conversation, mentorship, and the circulation of Native writing. Some of it will require new forms responsive to the literary communities Native writers are creating now. This next chapter will take shape deliberately and in relationship with others.