Connie Willis and Hank and John Green Among 2026 Arthur C. Clarke Foundation Honorees

The science fiction writer Connie Willis, the author brothers Hank and John Green, and the science educator Bill Nye are the Arthur C. Clarke Foundation's 2026 honorees. The foundation lists the three awards on its 2026 Unleash Imagination page, and they will be presented at its Unleash Imagination evening on November 18.

These are the foundation's own Arthur C. Clarke Awards. They are separate from the UK's literary Arthur C. Clarke Award, which is given each year for the best science fiction novel published in Britain.

The three awards

Imagination in Service to Society: Connie Willis. The foundation calls Willis "one of the world's most celebrated science fiction authors for her imaginative, insightful storytelling." Its biography notes that she has won eight Nebula Awards and eleven Hugos for her novels and short stories, more than any other author, for books including Doomsday Book, To Say Nothing of the Dog, and the two-volume Blackout and All Clear. She is a SFWA Grand Master and a member of the Science Fiction Hall of Fame. The foundation says she is now working on a new time-travel novel called Book Cipher.

Innovator: the Vlogbrothers, Hank and John Green. The foundation cites the brothers as "visionary authors, educators, and entrepreneurs inspiring millions through science, literature, and learning." It notes John Green's novels, among them Looking for Alaska, Paper Towns and The Fault in Our Stars, and Hank Green's bestsellers An Absolutely Remarkable Thing and A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor. Their company, Complexly, runs educational YouTube channels such as Crash Course and SciShow.

Lifetime Achievement: Bill Nye. The foundation honors Nye, a New York Times bestselling author and the longtime host of Bill Nye the Science Guy, for bringing generations of viewers to science "through curiosity, humor, and accessible learning."

The event

The presentation is set for the evening of Wednesday, November 18, 2026, at the Embassy of France in Washington, D.C., according to the foundation's event listing. The program includes the awards and a "Clarke Conversation on Imagination."

Why it matters for writers

Two of the three awards go to people who are, first of all, authors of fiction. The foundation named a writer of time-travel novels and a pair of brothers whose novels and videos reach millions of young readers. It is a reminder that science and space institutions still treat storytelling as part of how the public comes to science, and that novelists are among the people they choose to honor.

Sources

• Arthur C. Clarke Foundation: 2026 Unleash Imagination
• Arthur C. Clarke Foundation event listing: Arthur C. Clarke 2026 Unleash Imagination