The 2023 Zócalo Book Prize Honors Explorations of Community

We’re Looking for the Best Nonfiction Books on Human Connection

Since 2011, Zócalo Public Square’s annual book prize has recognized the U.S.-published nonfiction book that best enhances our understanding of community and the forces that strengthen or undermine human connectedness and social cohesion. Zócalo is grateful to screenwriter and philanthropist Tim Disney for his continuing sponsorship of our literary prize program, which also includes the Zócalo Poetry Prize.

Our mission is to connect people to ideas and to each other, which is why we have honored authors who explore these themes for over a dozen years now. Whether it’s a public …

September 8, 2022

The 2023 Zócalo Poetry Prize Celebrates Poems of Place

No-Fee Contest Submissions Accepted November 2022–January 2023

September 8, 2022

Since 2012, the Zócalo Public Square Poetry Prize has recognized the U.S. writer of a poem that best evokes a connection to place. Zócalo is currently accepting submissions. The deadline …

Why Migrant Butterflies Are Dying

Border Policies, Corporate Greed, and Political Dysfunction Hurt Monarchs and Humans Alike

by Columba Gonzalez-Duarte | August 22, 2022

In July, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) added the monarch butterfly, Danaus plexippus plexippus, to its Red List of Threatened Species, a recognition that the insect’s ongoing …

The World Inside a Giant Erlenmeyer Flask

August 17, 2022

Cecilia Gutiérrez García is an illustrator and designer from Seville, Spain. Her work combines traditional drawing techniques with bold digital colors. In her free time, she likes to read, browse …

Public Health Experts, They’re Just Like Us!

It’s Easy to Forget That Our Scientific Community Is Learning About COVID in Real Time, Too

by Kavita K. Trivedi and Valerie M. Deloney | February 9, 2022

A friend recently reminded Kavita, a physician epidemiologist, about a text exchange the two had shared in February 2020. When he asked how worried he should be about SARS-CoV-2, then …

Meet the ‘Mediators’ Who Connect Scientists and the Public

Fossil Preparators Are a Panacea to a Closed-Off Field—And Their Work Offers a New Model for Research

by Talib Jabbar | December 3, 2021

How do colossal Tyrannosaurus rex and Triceratops fossils get from the ground to the natural history museum? And could that process—which involves not just paleontologists but a largely uncredited group …

science