Announcing the Inaugural Winner of the Sowell Emerging Writers Prize

Congratulations to Kate Neville, Texas Tech University Press’s 2023 Sowell Emerging Writers Prize winner! Neville’s debut, Going to Seed, explores questions of idleness, considering the labor both of humans and of the myriad other inhabitants of the world. Drawing on science, literature, poetry, and personal observation, these winding and sometimes playful essays pay attention to the activities of the other-than-human lives that are usually excluded from our built and settled spaces, asking whose work and what kinds of work might be needed for a more just future for all. 

Kate Neville is an associate professor in Political Science and the School of the Environment at the University of Toronto, where she studies global energy and resource politics and community resistance. When not in Toronto, Kate can be found in a cabin in northern British Columbia, on the territory of the Taku River Tlingit First Nation. 

Going to Seed is the inaugural winner of the Sowell Emerging Writers Prize, which is produced in collaboration with the Sowell Collection and Terrain.org. The prize promotes works about and related to the natural world by early-career writers. In the spirit of the Sowell-affiliated writers and Terrain.org, these new works encourage exploration between human communities and nature from scientific inquiry and personal experience. 

Terrain.org is an online independent magazine that, for twenty-five years, has published essential literature, art, commentary, and design with a focus on place, climate, and justice—all at no cost to readers and without advertising. Terrain.org’s works focus on both the built and natural environments, encouraging readers to ponder current social and environmental issues. 

Follow Kate on Twitter: @katejneville and Instagram: @profnevs to see more of her Canadian adventures! Thank you again, Kate, for trusting us with your art. Get ready to read this stellar work of nonfiction in the spring of 2024.  

Also please follow @sowellcollect and @terrainorg