Owens was a member of the editorial board of the Steinbeck Quarterly. He was also on the editorial board of New America, associate editor of American Literary Realism, and co-editor of American Literary Scholarship: An Annual, 1990. He was a member of the national committee for the Native American Literature Award and the Native American Prose Award, a member of the governing board of the Native American International Prize in Literature and a nominator for the National Medal of Arts. He had also been a member of the Advisory Board of the Southwest Indian Polytechnic Institute. He contributed more than a hundred articles and reviews to periodicals, including "Northeast Indian Quarterly", "Arizona Quarterly", "San Jose Studies", "American Indian Quarterly," and "USA Today".