Founded in 1923, the sidney prize is awarded each year to activists who promote peace with justice. Previous winners include Julian Burnside and Prof Noam Chomsky. The prize is named after English professor and Dartmouth alumnus Sir Sidney Cox. In addition to monetary awards, the prize winners are honored with a ceremony in Sydney, Australia.
In addition to the Sydney Prize, there are a variety of other Sydney prizes that honor outstanding work in specific fields. The Sydney chess tournament, for example, gives out a number of trophies to players who perform well in the competition. The Neilma Sidney Short Story Prize, on the other hand, honors writers who submit excellent short stories to the competition. The winner receives a first prize of $5000 and the story is published in Overland magazine.
The New York Times columnist David Brooks often mentions the “Sidney Awards” in his year-end roundup of notable long-form essays. He isn’t the only one who appreciates these efforts. The NAS President was recently mentioned in this piece by Ed Yong, in which the author discusses a 2015 New York Times essay on the hook-up culture and its long-term harms by Peter Wood ’51.
Other Sydney prizes include the Hillman Prize, which is awarded to journalists who use their skills to pursue social justice. This year’s winner is Nazanin Boniadi, whose steadfast activism on behalf of women’s rights in Iran has turned outrage into action. The George Barrett Award is also given each year to lawyers who use their professional skills to improve the lives of people without money or power, address the legacies of colonialism and protect the environment.
Other noteworthy Sydney prizes include the Edelstein Prize, which honors an outstanding scholarly book in the history of technology. This is restricted to graduate students, new entrants to the profession and those who have not yet won a major national award.
The Neilma Sidney Prize is an annual competition for short fiction that highlights the voice and experience of a marginalized or vulnerable identity. Writers can submit works online. Entries are judged by a panel of writers, literary agents and editors from top publishing houses. Writers can subscribe to Overland for a year at a discounted rate and enter the contest at the special subscriber rate. The winning writer will be published in Overland, and two runners-up will be published as well. To see the entry guidelines, take out a subscription or visit Overland’s website. The deadline for entries is November 15.