Mensa Foundation Honors Merryman and Bronson With 2009 Press Award

Contact: Lauren Fernandez
817/607-0060 

ARLINGTON, TX (9/8/09) – The Mensa Education & Research Foundation announces that Ashley Merryman and Po Bronson have been honored with the 2009 Mensa Press Award, a national award presented to those who show excellence in writing about intelligence and human giftedness for a lay audience. Merryman and Bronson won the award for their article, ‘How Not to Talk to Your Kids’ published in New York Magazine. Mensa Foundation Vice President Phyllis Miller presented the pair with the $1,000 award at the New York City Barnes & Noble store in Union Square, New York City, where they were launching their new book, NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children.

“To receive any award from Mensa would be an honor. The fact that it comes for an article about the effects of hearing people tell you, ‘Honey, you're a genius!’ means so much more,” said Merryman. “The fact that the Foundation feels our reporting offers a meaningful insight into the benefits – and costs – of a label like ‘genius’ is very humbling and extremely gratifying.”

"Intelligence is something that is at once treasured, envied, dismissed as trivial, taken for granted, and hotly debated,” said Bronson. “We are extremely grateful that the Mensa Foundation thinks that we have made a meaningful contribution to understanding what true brilliance really is." 

NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children, published by Twelve, is a revolutionary perspective on childhood and parenting – unveiling the latest research on how we learn and grow. Together, Bronson and Merryman have written for Time, New York Magazine, and The Guardian (U.K.). This ifall, they will begin writing a NurtureShock blog for Newsweek. Bronson lives in San Francisco, with his wife and two children. Merryman lives in Los Angeles, where she runs a church-based tutoring program for inner-city children.

The Mensa Press Award is designed to encourage reporters and editors to spread the latest news about intelligence to lay audiences. Articles that have appeared in newspapers and magazines for up to two years prior to the submission date are eligible. Applicants need not be members of Mensa to win. For more information, visit www.mensafoundation.org.

For more than thirty years, the Mensa Education & Research Foundation has been a strong voice in supporting intelligence. The Foundation fosters the best and brightest through scholarships and awards, and encourages research and intellectual inquiry through the Mensa Research Journal, Colloquiums and its podcast series, Conversations with Mensa. Governed by a volunteer Board of Trustees, the Mensa Foundation is a 501c(3) organization and is funded by support from American Mensa, Mensa members and other charitable donations. To learn more about the Foundation, log on to www.mensafoundation.org.

###