The Sidney Prize is an annual literary award given to students who demonstrate dedication to high ideals. It was named in memory of Dr. Sidney Louis Wagman ’51, an alumnus and member of the New York City Board of Education; one of many University scholarships or awards named after distinguished alumni or members of its community.

The Sidney Thomas Prize in Art History is given annually to an undergraduate student who has written the best paper in art history. This annual honor is named in memory of Professor Sidney Thomas (1915-2009), an early pioneer in modern art studies who began as a Shakespeare scholar before pioneering its study with two-volume textbooks such as Images of Man: Selected Readings in Art History and The Nature of Art – still widely referenced today in this field.

Patrick Lenton, Alice Bishop and Sara Saleh judged the 2022 Neilma Sidney Short Story Prize competition with great success, selecting eight stories on the theme of ‘travel’ from among several hundred entries submitted by authors living around Australia-Bundjalung Country who live near Grafton – Claire Aman’s story ‘bird country” was chosen as winner from among these eight. Claire Aman lives and directs The Long Way Home community writing project while her stories have appeared in Overland, Island and Southerly publications as well as her 2017 collection entitled Bird Country.

In 1939, this award was established in memory of Sidney Howard (1891-1939), an emerging playwright who did not achieve immediate fame but nonetheless showed promise. It aimed to encourage new and promising young playwrights and the winner had the chance to spend one year writing for a London theatre company.

Overland Magazine is a non-profit magazine dedicated to publishing the work of new and emerging writers. Overland is proud of its long and storied tradition of supporting ideas and voices that may otherwise go unheard. Please support our work by subscribing or donating today!

We were delighted to give Stephan Miescher our Sidney Edelstein Prize for scholarly books in the history of technology in 2023 competition for his book A Dam for Africa: Akosombo Stories from Ghana (Indiana University Press 2022).

The University of Sydney’s annual prizes and medals aim to recognize excellence across various fields. Submittal of written works such as essays or poetry must be done under pseudonym and adhere to our Terms and Conditions for submissions involving copyright issues (pdf, 37KB). For further details please see our Copyright Release Form (pdf, 37KB).