The Department of English is excited to announce that Abel Fenwick, an English M.A. student, was recently awarded a 2025-2026 Wittliff Collections Research Award of $1,200.

She will use the funds to travel to The Wittliff Collections center, known as "The Wittliff," located at Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas.

Fenwick will conduct archival research on the literary papers of author Larry McMurtry.

According to its website, The Wittliff's purpose is to "collect, preserve and present the cultural heritage of Texas, the Southwest & Mexico through works of the region's storytellers—writers, photographers, musicians, filmmakers and other artists—to educate, engage and inspire.

"The voices and visions of any region's artists are rooted in the history and myth, traditions and relationships of the people who live upon it. This 'spirit of place' is at the very heart of [The Wittliff], illuminating the importance of the Southwestern and Mexican imaginations in the wider world."

Fenwick's research seeks to explore the transition of McMurtry's Lonesome Dove from a comedic 1970s screenplay to a tragicomedic Pulitzer Prize-winning novel in 1985, as well as the particular brand of Southwestern masculinity that emerged within it.

She plans to present her research at a conference she is co-organizing with Southern Methodist University, taking place on that campus Nov. 14 and 15.

Asked about the benefits of accessing the archived documents of McMurtry at The Wittliff, Fenwick said, "The characters of Woodrow F. Call and Gus McCrae meant so much to McMurtry that he paid $35,000 in 1970 to buy back the script. This was interesting enough, but learning that a book McMurtry referred to as 'The Gone with the Wind of the West'—for its role in propagating myths about America—had started life as a script so overtly critical of the genre that John Wayne refused to star in it was fascinating.

"Getting to access the original text will allow me to trace the evolution in the portrayal of Southwestern masculinity from comedic to tragic, and to figure out the elements of the original story which a man notorious for disowning his novels after finishing them simply couldn't move away from."

An international graduate student from Britain, Fenwick will be starting her second year in the English M.A. program this fall, specializing in cultural studies.

Her long-term plan is to work as an editor or a lecturer in the United Kingdom.