Recognizing Contributions To Our Mission
WCoNA’s Outstanding Contribution Award (OCA)
WCoNA’s Outstanding Contribution Award (OCA) recognizes individuals, ensembles, teams, or organizations whose contributions or body of literary work has furthered the WCoNA mission to honor our region’s distinct literature, or, by extension, its people. Those contributions may also have enhanced the craft of our authors, inspiring new work that represents northern Appalachia.
The individual or entity must have demonstrated exceptional contributions within the past five years, either directly or by its lasting influence. Posthumous awards are permitted.
The individual or entity must be or must have been actively engaged in contributing to the literature of northern Appalachia in the region of the Appalachian counties of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, New York, and the northern portion of West Virginia. WCoNA makes a donation in the name of the person or entity to an organization or institution serving to broaden literacy within some part of northern Appalachia.
WCoNA Champions
Each year we honor a person or organization whose work has advanced the literature of northern Appalachia. We then make a donation in their name to a group broadening literacy somewhere in the region.
2022
WCoNA made a donation in their name to the Literacy Pittsburgh Family Literacy Program.
2023
WCoNA made a donation in their name to the Sugar Valley Historical Society.
2025
WCoNA made a donation in their name to the Appalachian Prison Book Project.
WCoNA runs entirely on volunteers, and we have a variety of positions open right now! Join us in helping northern Appalachian literature thrive.
Your donation goes toward helping us keep the costs of our conferences and other writers’ services affordable. Help us grow the canon of northern Appalachia.
Tiers for every budget with perks spelled out on one page. Put your organization in the room where the region’s writers gather each year.