Sidney Prize is the prestigious award given annually to the best magazine essays. This year, many of these articles probed the intersection of science and the humanities. Two intellectual heavyweights, Leon Wieseltier and Steven Pinker, went toe-to-toe in The New Republic over the proper place of science in modern thought. Pinker took the expansive view, arguing that, despite what blinkered humanities professors think, science gives us insight into nearly everything.
Similarly, York University professor Edward Jones-Imhotep won the prestigious Edelstein Prize from the Society for the History of Technology. The prize honors a scholar for an outstanding book in the history of technology. Jones-Imhotep is one of only a few Canadian winners in the prize’s long history.
In a different field, writer Ron Rash has won the 2020 Sidney Lanier Prize from Mercer University’s Spencer B. King Center for Southern Studies. The prize is a major literary award that recognizes writers who engage and extend the Southern literary tradition.
For their work, both authors will receive cash prizes as well as merchandise. Both of them also have a chance to win a grand prize, which is an additional $1000. The winning entries will be published in the March 2022 issue of Overland.
Those not wishing to have their names displayed in the official prize list can request that their name be withheld from publication, or not include a full name at all, but please note that this is at the judges’ discretion and may not be possible for all submissions.
Overland 2021 Judith Wright Poetry Prize Winners and Runners-Up
Writer, bookseller and co-founder of Vre Books Ender Baskan won the $6000 Judith Wright Poetry Prize for her ‘are you ready poem’, which was described by the editors as “a rallying cry for artists and writers to make something dangerous and start an artists and writers league as a radical alternative to precarity and professionalisation.” Gareth Morgan came in second and Lillian Rupcic third. Overland also announced its 2021 Neilma Sidney Short Story Prize winners. Annie Zhang won the prize for her story ‘Who Rattles the Night?’. The prize is an annual award supported by the Malcolm Robertson Foundation and Overland magazine. The judges—Patrick Lenton, Alice Bishop and Sara Saleh—selected eight stories for a shortlist, and then chose a winner and two runners-up.
The prize is open to any Australian citizen or permanent resident who has an undergraduate degree in English. Submissions must be original and unpublished, and written in English. Submissions must be a maximum of 3000 words. The judged works must have a theme loosely related to the notion of travel. Writers can submit up to three pieces. Subscribers can enter the competition for a special rate by taking out a new subscription. The closing date for entries is 15 January 2022. Full details of the competition are available here. The prize will be presented at a ceremony in Sydney in February.
