Imagine awakening one morning to learn that you won a $150,000 literature award for which you had no idea you’d even been nominated.

You might think, as did many recipients of this year’s Donald Windham-Sandy M. Campbell Literature Prizes, that the message was part of an international money scam. Prizewinners use words like “bizarre” and “unhinged” to describe their initial reactions. Later, after the shock has worn off, they express immense gratitude at receiving such an honor.

Amongst the world’s most prestigious literature awards, the Windham Campbell Prizes recognize extraordinary achievement in fiction, nonfiction, and drama in the English language.

Windham’s papers are housed at Yale’s Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, which administers the awards and organizes all Windham Campbell events.

For more information about the Windham Campbell Prizes, see http://windhamcampbell.org/.

SAGE Magazine’s Timothy Brown spoke with 2014 Prize winners Jim Crace, Noëlle Janaczewska, and John Vaillant, whose work specifically addresses environmental and natural history themes.

 

Read the interviews

 

Noëlle Janaczewska
Noëlle Janaczewska 		Jim Crace
Jim Crace 		John Vaillant
John Vaillant

Written by

Timothy is Editor in Chief at SAGE Magazine. A former high school environmental science teacher, Timothy now studies environmental anthropology and writing at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.