The Sidney Hillman Prize and the Neilma Sidney Short Story Prize
The Sidney Hillman Prize is given annually to “journalists, writers and public figures who pursue social justice and public policy for the common good”. It is named in honor of the late journalist and activist, Sidney Hillman. The prize is a grant from the family foundation of the same name, which has donated more than $70 million to support progressive causes and projects.
The first Sidney Hillman Prize was awarded in 2008, for articles by Meredith Whitney and Steve Eisman that showed how the U.S. financial system had become a doomsday machine that was about to collapse. In his essay, Lewis praised the courage of these analysts and others who saw the truth when everyone else was blinded by denial.
In chemistry, Sidney Altman shared the 1989 Nobel Prize with Thomas R. Cech for their discovery that RNA, long believed to be simply a carrier of genetic codes between parts of the cell, also actively aids essential chemical reactions within living cells. This revolutionary finding opened up new fields of scientific research and biotechnology.
At Trent University, Professor Edward Jones-Imhotep is the only faculty member ever to win the prestigious Sidney Edelstein Prize of the Society for the History of Technology (SHOT). The prize honours an outstanding scholarly book in the field of the history of technology published during the preceding three years. Jones-Imhotep is a full-time professor in the Department of History, Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies, where he teaches one of our most popular courses – HIST 1777: Disasters and History.
The Overland Neilma Sidney Short Story Prize is an Australian literary and cultural magazine competition that is open to all writers, both local and international. This year’s prize, which is supported by the Malcolm Robertson Foundation, offers a first prize of $5000 and two runners-up will have their stories published in Overland. The judging panel of 2023, which included Patrick Lenton, Alice Bishop and Sara Saleh, reviewed over 500 entries to come up with their shortlist.
The Sidney Awards stand athwart technology, yelling stop. They celebrate long-form journalism and thought. Nominations are open each month and close on the last day of the previous month. Winners are announced the second Wednesday of each month. If you have a nomination to make, please email it to the Awards Committee at sydneyaward@propublica.org. A small donation is suggested to help cover operating costs, but it is not required to make a nomination. Please be sure to include a description of the work that makes it worthy of a Sidney. Donations are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law in your jurisdiction. To see the list of previous winners, click here. To order gold and silver seals to put on winning books, or for more information, click here.