Announcements

Gene Luen Yang, the multiple award-winning and best-selling author of the modern classic American Born Chinese (recently adapted by Disney+), was honored with the 2024 John Steinbeck “In the Souls of the People” Award at an event at San Jose State’s Student Union Theater on Friday, October 25, 2024. Yang, a MacArthur “Genius Fellow” and national Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, received the Steinbeck Award after having a craft conversation about visual storytelling with Mark Siegal, the founder and Creative and Editorial Director of First Second Books (the esteemed graphic novel imprint of Macmillan). The two authors discussed Yang’s storied career, including writing American Born Chinese, his work on Avatar: The Last Airbender, Shang Chi, and Superman, and his work in memoir and original comics, including 2024’s Lunar New Year Love Story (co-written with LeUyen Pham).March 11–13, 2026Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ The International Steinbeck Society invites proposals related to the ways in which John Steinbeck’s work offers insights into human experience during moments of crisis—including personal, social, cultural, political, or ecological. We seek contributions that broaden understanding of how Steinbeck’s writing addresses such themes as conflict, collaboration, resolution, resilience, and survival, and how these resonate in today’s world.We welcome submissions from various disciplines, including literary studies, film and media, history, philosophy, environmental studies, public humanities, gender and ethnic studies, and political science, as well as interdisciplinary approaches and others that explore Steinbeck’s work more generally.For traditional presentations, please email your abstract of up to 300 words, as well as a short bio (up to 200 words) to [email protected] with the subject line “Steinbeck Conference 2026 Submission, [last name].” If you are interested in submitting a pre-constituted panel, workshop, or roundtable session, please note your panel title, format, and the names of your co-presenters in your submission.If you are interested in soliciting participants for a pre-constituted panel, workshop, or roundtable session, please send your topic and request to the Martha Heasley Cox Center for Steinbeck Studies @ [email protected], with the subject line “Panel CFP Steinbeck Conference 2026.” We will then share your topic and call for participants with the Center’s mailing list.To ensure an accessible conference experience, this event will accommodate a limited number of remote presentations and will livestream its plenary talks for access by registered attendees. Please note in your submission if you plan to attend in person or present remotely.Notices of acceptance to the conference will be sent out on a rolling basis in order to support scholars who are seeking funding from their home institution. And the final deadline for proposals is 11:59 p.m. (midnight) on December 1, 2025.Thanks to a generous donation from Mrs. C. Suzette Ditsky, emerging Steinbeck scholars can apply to utilize the outstanding resources in the Ball State University Libraries. The Steinbeck Research Fund has established in honor of Mrs. Ditsky’s late husband, John, who passed away in 2006. Dr. Tetsumaro Hayashi, a longtime friend, said, “He was first and foremost a passionate and dedicated scholar, teacher, and mentor.” Hayashi commented that the Research Fund was “established to honor Ditsky’s long-established legacy of extending a helping hand to emerging Steinbeck Scholars.”Recipients will spend a minimum of five days doing intensive research using the Steinbeck collections or other materials at the Ball State University Libraries. The resulting research must be submitted for publication in a professional, scholarly, Steinbeck-related journal, and/or presented at a Steinbeck Conference, convention, or lecture at a university.Applicants should submit a Steinbeck-related research proposal (minimum of two pages), a curriculum vitae, a completed application form (available at https://bsu.libguides.com/ld.php?content_id=48465493), and two letters of recommendation from colleagues, faculty members, or others who can speak to your academic qualifications. More details, including guidance for drafting your application, can be found on the application document itself. Completed applications can be emailed directly to [email protected] memory of Louis Owens, The Martha Heasley Cox Center for Steinbeck Studies established this award to honor undergraduate and graduate student work on Steinbeck and related subjects. Undergraduate and graduate students may submit, or faculty may submit on their behalf.Send as attachment to [email protected], or by regular mail to:The Martha Heasley Cox Center for Steinbeck Studies at San José State University continues to coordinate in the Steinbeck Letters Project, which aims to create a searchable database listing of John Steinbeck’s letters starting with the letters in the Center’s possession.Anyone interested in more information or contributing to this project, please contact us at [email protected] your university or organization have an announcement to share with the Steinbeck Studies community? Email your entries to [email protected] by August 10 (for the fall issue) or January 10 (for the spring issue), using the subject line: “Announcement for Steinbeck Review.”