The award is named after American Wallace Stegner (1909–1993), a historian, novelist, short story writer, environmentalist, and Stanford faculty member who founded the university's creative writing program.
Initially the fellowship was for three writing fellows per year, many of whom were World War II veterans returning home from overseas.
The current fiction faculty for the program consists of Elizabeth Tallent, Adam Johnson, Kirstin Valdez Quade, Chang-Rae Lee, and Molly Antopol.
Recent visiting writers include Heather McHugh, Nobel Laureate J. M. Coetzee, Bharati Mukherjee, Robert Pinsky, Colm Toibin, Li-Young Lee and, just before his death in 2004, Thom Gunn.
Notable previous long-term faculty include W. S. Di Piero and Denise Levertov in poetry; and John L'Heureux and Nancy Packer in fiction.