Wallace Stegner (1909–93) was one of America’s most distinguished novelists and essayists. His works include the Pulitzer Prize–winning Angle of Repose and The Spectator Bird, winner of the National Book Award. Richard W. Etulain is a professor emeritus of history at the University of New Mexico. He is the coauthor of The American West: A Twentieth-Century History (Nebraska 1989) and Stegner: Conversations on History and Literature.