The Sydney Prize and the Neilma Sidney Short Story Prize

Sydney prize is a prestigious award given to writers who have authored works that explore social and economic injustices. The winners of the Sydney prize are published in AJL and receive a cash prize. They are also eligible to carry the Sydney Taylor Manuscript seal on copies of their work that have been printed and published after winning the prize.

The Sydney prize is named for American philosopher Sidney Hook. A few years after his death, the National Association of Scholars incorporated an annual prize at its national conference in his name. The Sydney prize carries the same prestige that Hook had hoped to confer upon academic writing. While the prize does not guarantee publication, it has been an incentive for many aspiring writers with varying degrees of experience to submit their manuscripts to AJL. A number of Sydney Taylor manuscripts have subsequently been published, and the committee has a policy of judging each manuscript by its own merits.

Each year, the Sydney Prize honors a leading global voice that promotes peace with justice and nonviolence. Previous laureates include Mary Robinson, Noam Chomsky and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The Sydney prize is supported by the City of Sydney and the Australian government, and honourees are invited to Australia for a special lecture and dinner held in their honour.

In 2023, the Event Cinemas Rising Talent Award is a new award that recognises an emerging film creative working in short film with a cash prize of $7,000. The Event Cinemas Rising Talent Award is open to NSW-based directors and screenwriters who have had no more than five short film credits.

Each spring, the University of Sydney awards a prize for that piece of undergraduate writing which most nearly meets the high standards of originality and integrity which Sir Sidney Cox set for himself and his students. The Committee — which consists of members of the faculty and a representative from the student body — selects a winner each year. The Committee also appoints a judge of the manuscripts who will publish the decision in early spring. The judge will be a Hanover graduate student.

The Neilma Sidney Short Story Prize, established in 2007, is awarded by Overland and the Malcolm Robertson Foundation for outstanding original short fiction up to 3000 words in length. The winning story will be published in the Overland autumn issue, with two runners-up to be published online. The judges are Patrick Lenton, Alice Bishop and Sara Saleh. In 2023, the overland team selected eight pieces to be shortlisted from the original submissions and then chose a winner and two runners-up. We would like to thank our judges for their commitment to the blind judging process and their time spent reading these compelling stories. The winning submission is “At the Door of a Country Pub” by Alison Cunningham. Read the full shortlist here. All shortlisted and awarded works are available to view online.