Nathaniel Philbrick

Nathaniel Philbrick grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he attended Linden Elementary School and Taylor Allderdice High School. He earned a BA in English from Brown University and an MA in America Literature from Duke University, where he was a James B. Duke Fellow. He was Brown University’s first Intercollegiate All-American sailor in 1978, the same year he won the Sunfish North Americans in Barrington, RI. After working as an editor at Sailing World magazine, he wrote and edited several books about sailing, including The Passionate Sailor, Second Wind, and Yaahting, A Parody.

In 1986, Philbrick moved to Nantucket with his wife, Melissa, and their two children. In 1994, he published his first book about the island’s history, Away Off Shore, followed by a study of the Nantucket’s native legacy titled Abram’s Eyes. He is the founding director of the Egan Maritime Institute and a research fellow at the Nantucket Historical Association.

In 2000, he published the New York Times bestseller In the Heart of the Sea, winner of the National Book Award for nonfiction, followed by Sea of Glory, winner of the Theodore and Franklin D. Roosevelt Naval History Prize and the Albion-Monroe Award from the National Maritime Historical Society, and Mayflower, finalist for both the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in History and the Los Angeles Times Book Award, and winner of the Massachusetts Book Award for nonfiction. His writing has also appeared in Vanity Fair, the New York Times Book Review, The Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and The Boston Globe. He has appeared on the Today Show, the Morning Show, Dateline, PBS’s American Experience, CSPAN, and NPR.

Linford D. Fisher

Professor Fisher grew up in the rolling hills of southeastern Pennsylvania. He received his doctorate from Harvard University in 2008. In 2008-2009 he was an Assistant Professor of History at Indiana University-South Bend. He joined the Department of History at Brown in the summer of 2009. Professor Fisher's research and teaching relate primarily to the cultural and religious history of colonial America and the Atlantic world, including Native Americans, religion, material culture, and Indian and African slavery and servitude.

Caleb Fiske Harris Collection Literary Award

The Caleb Fiske Harris Collection Literary Award recognizes leaders in the creative community for their outstanding contributions to American literature. Inspired by the love of the arts demonstrated by Caleb Fiske Harris, Brown class of 1838, during his lifetime, the award celebrates the influence of literature in popular culture. You can also read more about past award recipients George RR Martin and Tom Doherty.

Harris Collection of American Poetry and Plays

The Brown University Library’s Harris Collection of American Poetry and Plays is comprised of American and Canadian poetry, plays, and vocal music dating from 1609 to the present. It is perhaps the largest and most comprehensive collection of its kind in any research library. The extensive holdings include the works of most American and Canadian poets and playwrights from the 18th century to the present day — from Walt Whitman and Edgar Allan Poe to many less well-known artists.