A great piece on what REALLY happens in the room where it happens when what is happening is a Major Literary Prize!
And very cool to see echoes of what @mellymeldubs.bsky.social and I found in our own research on literary prize juries and the books they pick!
www.publicbooks.org/what-35-year...
www.publicbooks.org
We may never know what goes on in the rooms where literary prizes are decided, but thanks to data, we know exactly who was there.
Writers and readers and even editors have so many misunderstandings about how book prizes work. I’m not going to give anyone a stroke by revealing secrets of the judging room, BUT I want to tell you a whole lot of stuff that you probably don’t know 🧵
open.substack.com/pub/rebeccam...
