In 2003, he won the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay for "Test of Time". In 2006, William H. Gass was a featured speaker at Lake Forest College for the 2006 &NOW Festival and the Lake Forest Literary Festival. In Dan Simmons's science fiction novel "Hyperion", Gass is referred to as "the twentieth century's most honoured writer" by the poet Martin Silenus. More recently, Gass won the 2007 Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism in Memory of Newton Arvin. The winner of this award is chosen by a panel of six authors, and s/he also receives a cash prize of $30,000. The panel awarded Gass for his 2006 collection of essays, "A Temple of Texts".