AWARDS AND SPECIAL APPOINTMENTS:
American Book Award, Chair of Tears, a novel, 2012.
The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, manuscripts, letters, and other literary material acquired for the Rare Books and Manuscripts Collection, 2008 through 2012.
Elected Member, Executive Council, Minnesota State Historical Society, Saint Paul, Minnesota, November 2010.
Delegate and Principal Writer, White Earth Reservation Constitutional Convention, Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, prepared the proposed constitution for ratification, 2008, 2009.
Distinguished Achievement Award, Western Literature Association, 2005.
Distinguished Minnesotan Award, Bemidji State University, May 2005.
Richard and Rhoda Goldman Distinguished Professor, 2000-2002, Division of Undergraduate and Interdisciplinary Studies, University of California, Berkeley.
Lifetime Literary Achievement Award, Native Writer’s Circle of the Americas, University of Oklahoma, 2001.
Beinecke Library, Yale University, manuscripts, letters, and other literary material acquired for the American Literature Manuscripts Collection, 2000, 2004, 2008.
Doctor of Humane Letters, Honorary Degree, Macalester College, Saint Paul, Minnesota, May 1999.
Minnesota Author Biographies Project, database biography and manuscript collection, Minnesota Historical Society, 2000.
Literary Laureate, San Francisco Public Library, Honorary Award, April 2000.
PEN Oakland, Josephine Miles Award, Excellence in Literature, for Native American Literature, an anthology, HarperCollins College Publishers, 1996.
Teachers Hall of Fame, University of Minnesota Alumni Association, Minneapolis, 1995.
Named one of “100 Visionaries” by the editors of the Utne Reader, 1995.
David Burr Chair of Letters, University of Oklahoma, English Department, endowed chair, academic year 1990-1991.
PEN Oakland, Josephine Miles Award, Excellence in Literature, for Interior Landscapes: Autobiographical Myths and Metaphors, University of Minnesota Press, 1990.
American Book Award, Griever: An American Monkey King in China, 1988;
NewYork Fiction Collective Award, 1986.
Artists Fellowship in Literature for 1989, California Arts Council, an award for professional achievement in literature.
Faculty Research Grant for 1989, University of California, Santa Cruz, and a similar faculty research grant at the University of Minnesota, 1982.
Resident Scholar at the School of American Research, Santa Fe, New Mexico, academic year, research on “trickster discourse” in Native American Indian literature, 1985-1986.
Screenplay Harold of Orange won the Film-in-the-Cities national competition, Robert Redford Sundance Film Institute, summer 1983. The film won “Best Film” at the San Francisco Film Festival for American Indian Films.
James J. Hill Visiting Professor, University of Minnesota, 1977.
Bush Foundation Leadership Fellow, grant for graduate study at Harvard University, 1974.
RECENT BOOK REVIEWS:
“Speculative Constitutions: Gerald Vizenor’s ‘Treaty Shirts,'” by Stina Attebery, Los Angeles Review of Books. November 26, 2017.
Review of Favor of Crows by Charles Trumbull, Great River Review, Fall/Winter 2014.
Favor of Crows featured by Lauren Camp, on Audio Saucepan from KSFR 101.1FM by Sante Fe Public Radio, November 23, 2014.
Review of Favor of Crows by Kevin Winter, Portland Review of Books, July 15, 2014.
Review of Favor of Crows by Sonja James, The Journal, June 5, 2014.
Review of Favor of Crows by Janna Knittel, Rain Taxi Review of Books, Summer 2014.
Review of Blue Ravens by Karl Helicher, in Foreword Reviews, February 27, 2014.
Review of Chair of Tears by Andy Meyer, in Western American Literature, Volume 49, Number 3, Fall 2014.
Review of In America by Susan Sontag, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, in the Minneapolis StarTribune, Sunday, April 2, 2000.
Review of An Eagle Nation by Carter Revard, University of Arizona Press, in the journal World Literature Today, Winter 1995.
Review of On the Translation of Native American Literatures, edited by Brian Swann, World Literature Today, Spring 1993.
“Christopher Columbus: Lost Havens in the Ruins of Representation,” review essay, thirteen new books on Columbus, American Indian Quarterly, Fall 1992.
Review of PrairyErth by William Least Heat-Moon, San Francisco Chronicle,
Sunday, October 6, 1991. Expanded review in World Literature Today, 1992.
Review of Mean Spirit by Linda Hogan, World Literature Today, Winter 1991.
Interpretive review of Tripmaster Monkey by Maxine Hong Kingston, American Book Review, January 1990.
Review of The Fast Men by Tom McNab, Los Angeles Times Book Review, May 1988, and American Indian Quarterly, 1990,
Review of Tripmaster Monkey by Maxine Hong Kingston, Los Angeles Times Book Review, front page review, April 23, 1989.
Review of The Fencepost Chronicles by W. P. Kinsella, Los Angeles Times Book Review, December 20, 1987.