Gabriel Kennedy/Prop Anon has been awarded the S.I. Hayakawa Book Prize from the Institute of General Semantics for his book, Chapel Perilous: The Life & Thought Crimes of Robert Anton Wilson. Prop announced the award on his Substack:
"On October 3rd, 2025, I was presented with the award at the 73rd Annual Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture held at The Players in Manhattan, New York. After punching away at a keyboard in a cloistered warehouse away from the world for longer than I can clearly remember, I received a grand welcome back in the Big Apple from a great group of super smart media ecologists, semanticists, and educators. The weekend was an overwhelming experience that really left me humbled enough to go radio silent for a number of days just to digest the opulent display of hospitality and admiration that both I and my book has received from the IGS. I’m truly grateful."
Follow the link for the acceptance speech and the text of a presentation, "Semantic Engineering: Robert Anton Wilson and the Rewiring of Human Thought."
I was curious about the award, so I found a website which lists some of the other winners, although apparently the site needs to be updated -- the last winner listed is for 2021. It does appear to be an annual award. I can fill in one of the missing years -- in 2022 the award was given to The Genes of Culture: Towards a Theory of Symbols, Meaning and Media Volumes One and Two, edited by Carolyn Wiebe and Susan Maushart.
Many of the others who have won are quite well-known -- some of the past winners include John H. McWhorter, Tom Wolfe, Elizabeth Kolbert and Sherry Turkle. "First given in 2009, the Institute of General Semantics awards the S. I. Hayakawa Book Prize to the most outstanding work published in the past five years on topics of direct relevance to the discipline of general semantics. The prize includes a cash award of $1,000."
Here is an archive of articles from the same Substack. Lots of RAW material.
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