SONWA News

A shelf of Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Award winners

Celebrating the Best in Nature Writing

The Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Awards

“That’s an interesting idea,” said Elizabeth Olson. “Tell me more.” I was sitting at the large maple table in the living room of Sig and Elizabeth Olson, around which countless conservation campaigns and strategies had been hatched over the decades. Even with Sig gone for eight years, the table was still a centerpiece for ideas…

SONWA

2020 SONWAs Announced

Top prizes awarded to Miracle Country and Butterflies Belong Here.

The Northland College Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute has announced the winning 2020 books for the Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Award (SONWA). Author Kendra Atleework has been selected for the top prize in nature writing for Miracle Country: A Memoir of a Family and a Landscape (Algonquin Books), an extraordinary account of a young woman’s…

SONWA winning books

SONWA Winners 1991–2024

Nature Books for Adults and Children

Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Award Winners • 1991. Open Spaces, Jim Dale Vickery. Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Award (SONWA) gave its inaugural award to Minnesota author Jim Dale Vickery for…  Read More

2019 SONWA Winning books, To Speak for the Trees and The Boy Who Grew a Forest

Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Awards Announced

The Northland College Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute has announced the winning 2019 books for the Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Award (SONWA). Author Diana Beresford-Kroeger has been selected for the top prize in nature writing for her autobiographical release, To Speak for the Trees: My Life’s Journey from Ancient Celtic Wisdom to a Healing Vision…

SONWA children's winning book covers

SOEI Announces Best in Children’s Nature Books 2018

SONWA Children's Book Awards

The Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Award committee has awarded author Sigrid Schmalzer and illustrator Melanie Linden Chan top prize in children’s literature for Moth and Wasp, Soil and Ocean: Remembering Chinese Scientist Pu Zhelong’s Work for Sustainable Farming. The awards, given for best nature writing in 2018, were announced today in time for Earth…

Winning book covers of Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Awards

SONWA Book Awards Announced

Best in 2018 Nature Writing

For the third time in its twenty-seven-year history, Craig Childs has been awarded the Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Award. The SONWA committee has selected Atlas of a Lost World: Travels in Ice Age America as the best in nature writing for 2018. Childs was awarded SONWAs in 2007 for The Animal Dialogues and in…

SONWA winners

2016 Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Award Winners

Northland College announces Book Awards for Earth Day

Northland College has announced the winning 2016 books for the Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Award (SONWA) in adult, young adult, and children’s literature. Since 1991, the SONWA has honored…  Read More

For the Love of Rivers book cover

For the Love of Rivers

The Northland College Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute will award Kurt D. Fausch the Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Award for his book, For the Love of Rivers: A Scientist’s Journey…  Read More

Winning books in grass

SONWA 2015 Winners

Rivers, Water, and a North Woods Girl

In time for Earth Day, Northland College has announced the winning 2015 books for the Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Award (SONWA) in adult, young adult, and children’s literature. The…  Read More