PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award

PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award is sponsored by PEN America.

Award for distinguished science writing with literary merit. Relevant for authors writing educational or science-focused content for young readers.

PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award - PEN America PEN/E.

O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award - PEN America Online Abuse & Digital Safety Preserving Russian Independent Media America’s Censored Campuses 2025 Censorship spreads across U.S. college campuses. Expanding the Web of Control Campus Free Speech Guide PEN America’s principles and guidance on the complex issues surrounding free speech on college campuses.

Book Bans Continue to Spread With more than 22K instances since 2021, the bans have become normalized. The Normalization of Book Banning PEN America Literary Gala PEN World Voices Festival 2026 Literary Awards Ceremony The 2026 Literary Awards will confer nearly $350,000 to writers. 2026 Literary Gala in NYC Don’t miss this inspiring event that celebrates and defends freedom of expression.

Literary Programs & Grants Fellowships, Workshops & Trainings Prison and Justice Writing U.S. Writers Aid Initiative Incarcerated Writers Bureau will connect writers to agents and other opportunities New Digital Resource to Help Work Directly with Incarcerated Writers 2026 Literary Award Finalists Announced Join us at the Literary Awards Ceremony on March 31 Announcing the 2026 PEN America Literary Awards Finalists Facts Forward: Helping Journalists Combat Disinformation Online Harassment Field Manual Latest Book Ban Data Released Local censorship tactics are being adopted on the state and federal levels The Normalization of Book Banning Dinaw Mengestu New PEN America President Novelist Dinaw Mengestu, on Books, Literary Culture, Free Expression, and Censorship in This Moment Shop PEN America Member Books Expore bestselling fiction, children’s and young adult literature, award-winning translations, vital works of nonfiction, and more.

2025 Books by PEN America Members Gift a PEN America Membership Children’s and Young Adult Books Committee Writers in the Schools Committee Become a PEN America Young Patron Shop PEN America Originals Updates on the latest advocacy actions We invite readers, authors, educators, librarians, and everyone who opposes censorship to get involved>> Join the fight for the Freedom to Read Home / Literary Awards / PEN/E. O.

Wilson Literary Science Writing Award PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award The PEN/E.

O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award celebrates writing that exemplifies literary excellence on the subject of the physical or biological sciences and communicates complex scientific concepts to a lay audience. The winner receives a cash award of $10,000.

The PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award was founded by scientist and author Dr. Edward O.

Wilson, activist and actor Harrison Ford, and the E. O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation.

The award is also supported by Jim and Cathy Stone. The inaugural award was conferred in 2011. Examples of published works that exemplify the quality of writing the award is designed to acknowledge include Rachel Carlson’s Silent Spring (1962), Lewis Thomas’s The Lives of a Cell (1978), and Douglas Hofstadter’s Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid (1979).

All winners, finalists, and longlisters for this award are eligible to receive PEN America’s official emblems. If you are a publisher and interested in obtaining PEN America’s award emblem, please write to [email protected] . For more information, please visit our Awards FAQ page .

For a work that exemplifies literary excellence on the subject of the physical or biological sciences and communicates complex scientific concepts to a lay audience. Winner: Every Living Thing: The Great and Deadly Race to Know All Life , Jason Roberts From the judges’ citation: “ What does it mean for a thing to be alive? What are its parts, its mechanisms, its situatedness—what shall distinguish one bit of life from another?

And above all, how do we— Homo sapiens— fit into the story of life on earth? The biological sciences have their ways of wrestling with these questions now, but so much of it goes back to two European men who hated each other: Linnaeus and Buffon, the founding fathers of taxonomy.

Every Living Thing tells the addictive story of two scientists with radically different personalities, biographies, and—no surprise, then—radically different approaches to their work. Their decades-long rivalry formed the bedrock of an entire field. Roberts’ prose is rich in acutely observed historical and cultural detail and paints a vivid picture of biology as it was before Darwin, geese growing on shrubs and all.

Most of all, Every Living Thing is a portrait of science as a human activity, driven by ambition and grudge and status like everything humans do, yet still bending towards an ever-greater understanding of the world. This book is about the past, but one can’t read it without asking: what are the decisions scientists and their sponsors are making today that will affect how we understand the world in future centuries?

” 2024: California Against the Sea: Visions for Our Vanishing Coastline , Rosanna Xia (Heyday Books) 2023: Heartbreak, Florence Williams (W. W. Norton & Company) 2022 Fox & I: Uncommon Friendship , Catherine Raven (Spiegel & Grau) 2021 Jonathan C.

Slaght for Owls of the Eastern Ice: A Quest to Find and Save the World’s Largest Owl (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) 2020 Frans de Waal for Mama’s Last Hug: Animal Emotions and What They Tell Us about Ourselves (W. W.

Norton & Company) 2019 Ben Goldfarb for Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter (Chelsea Green) 2018 Lindsey Fitzharris for The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister’s Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine (Scientific American/Farrar, Straus and Giroux) 2017 Luke Dittrich for Patient H. M.

: A Story of Memory, Madness, and Family Secrets ( Random House) 2016 Lauren Redniss for Thunder & Lightning: Weather Past, Present, and Future (Random House) 2015 Joshua Horwitz for War of the Whales: A True Story (Simon & Schuster) 2014 Dr. Carl Hart for High Price: A Neuroscientist’s Journey of Self-Discovery That Challenges Everything You Know About Drugs and Society (Harper) 2013 Leonard Mlodinow for Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior (Pantheon) 2012 James Gleick for The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood (Pantheon) 2011 Siddhartha Mukherjee for The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer (Scribner) Eligible titles must have been published between January 1 and December 31 of the applicable calendar year.

Eligible books must be written by a single, living author. Authors of the work must be permanent U.S. residents or citizens. If you submit a book for this award, you may not submit it for any additional PEN America Literary Award, with the exception of the PEN Open Book Award .

Please note that the PEN/Faulkner Award is not considered a PEN America Literary Award. All submitted books must be published by a trade or academic publisher between January 1 and December 31 in the applicable year. Self-published books are ineligible for the PEN America Literary Awards.

Books with more than one original author are ineligible for the PEN America Literary Awards. PEN America will only accept submissions from publishers or literary agents. Authors may not submit their own books.

On the submission form, please select the award you are submitting to. Submissions of a book to multiple awards is allowed only in the case of the PEN Open Book Award . Please complete a separate submission for this award if applicable.

Please submit verified email addresses on the submission form. Your order cannot be processed without an email address. Additional contacts are required so that we may be in contact directly if an author or translator is selected as a longlister, finalist, and/or winner.

Upload a PDF file of the galley or final manuscript on the book submissions form. Book award submissions will be read as PDF files. Please upload the file saved as BOOKTITLE_AUTHORNAME.

For the judges’ convenience, please upload a book file WITHOUT watermarks. Each book file will be kept confidentially between the Literary Awards team and the awards judges. Please note that if a book is longlisted, PEN America may request a physical copy be sent to the judging panel.

Upload a high-resolution book jacket photo. This may be used later if the book is longlisted, a finalist, or a winner. Each submission is $85.

Submission fees are not refundable. Please note that all payments must be made via the submission form. Submission fees may be waived for publishers whose annual net sales are less than $2 million.

You may request an exemption here —this form asks for a letter on company letterhead stating that the press’s annual net sales are less than $2 million. Do not submit your title before requesting your fee exemption , as the Literary Awards Team will provide you with an alternative submission method. Once the submitted book is received and reviewed for eligibility by PEN America, it will be passed along to the judges.

Please add [email protected] to your address book, as it will be the main point of contact from PEN America. PEN America Washington, DC Help protect the freedom to write, read, and learn by donating to PEN America today.