Ep. 74: Judging the Aspen Words Literary Prize with Sara Hildreth (@FictionMatters) + Book Recommendations
Sarah's Bookshelves Live
Sarah Dickinson
4.9 • 732 Ratings
🗓️ 20 January 2021
⏱️ 55 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In Episode 74, Sara Hildreth from @fictionmatters and the Novel Pairings Podcast shares her experience judging the Aspen Words literary prize.
This post contains affiliate links, through which I make a small commission when you make a purchase (at no cost to you!).
Highlights
- Whether publishers stuck to the stated mission of the prize when they submitted books.
- The role of the Reading Committee and how it works with the judges.
- How Sara was approached to do this and if she got paid.
- The types of people that are able to take on a role like this given the time commitment and small payment (and some ways the process could be streamlined to open up a role like this to a larger subset of people).
- Sara’s personal process for reading, rating, and ranking the 185 submissions.
- Whether Sara was allowed to DNF and what guidance the Prize gave her about DNF’ing.
- How Sara balanced her personal enjoyment of a submission with the book’s literary merit.
- How Sara handled books where her personal views on the issue being highlighted differed dramatically from the viewpoint put forth in the book.
- The book Sara would choose as the winner if she was the sole judge.
- The impact judging the prize had on Sara’s reading life (including what she read when she wasn’t reading Prize submissions, things she learned through this process that she’ll integrate into her reading life moving forward, and it she’d ever do something like this again).
Sara’s Book Recommendations [34:52]
Two OLD Books She Loves
- The Affairs of the Falcons by Melissa Rivero | Buy from Amazon
[35:18]
- Enter the Aardvark by Jessica Anthony | Buy from Amazon [36:56]
Two NEW Books She Loves
- Crooked Hallelujah by Kelli Jo Ford | Buy from Amazon [40:43]
- The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson | Buy from Amazon [43:10]
One Book She DIDN’T LOVE
- The Silence by Don DeLillo | Buy from Amazon [45:42]
One NEW RELEASE She’s Excited About
- The Bad Muslim Discount by Syed Masood | Buy from Amazon
[47:57]
Last 5 Star Book Sara Read [50:02]
- The Autobiography of Carson McCullers by Jenn Shapland | Buy from Amazon [50:02]
Other Books Mentioned
- Against the Loveless World by Susan Abulhawa | Buy from Amazon
- Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi (My Review) | Buy from Amazon [28:26]
- Fiebre Tropical by Juliana Delgado Lopera | Buy from Amazon
- In the Dream House
by Carmen Maria Machado | Buy from Amazon
- The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald | Buy from Amazon
- We Keep the Dead Close by Becky Cooper (My Review) | Buy from Amazon [52:15]
Other Links
- Fiction Matters blog
- Novel Pairings Podcast
- Fiction Matters Patreon community
- Aspen Words Prize website
About Sara
Sara Hildreth is a reader, teacher, and lifelong learner.
Prior to this year, Sara taught high school English at an all-girls school in Colorado.
While working on her MA in Literature at Georgetown University, Sara began sharing her reading life publicly on Instagram as a way to connect with bibliophiles outside of academia. Through her participation in this community, Sara fell in love with recommending books to a larger audience all while challenging her thinking and expanding her own reading taste.
She lives in Denver, CO with her husband and their puppy, Mr. Bingley.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Sarah's Bookshelves Live. I'm Sarah of the blog Sarah's Bookshelves. Each week I'm |
| 0:15.5 | talking with one bookish guest about two old books they love, two new books they love, one book they don't love, and one new |
| 0:22.7 | release they're excited about. We're going to get real and sometimes a bit snarky about all things |
| 0:28.3 | books. If you like the show, I'd really love your support. Spread the word to your reader friends, |
| 0:33.8 | subscribe to the show, rate and review it wherever you listen to podcasts, or get bonus podcast episodes |
| 0:40.8 | by supporting the podcast on Patreon. There's a link in the show notes and in my Instagram bio to my |
| 0:47.5 | Patreon page. Let's get rolling. Hey everyone, today I have my first time ever repeat podcast guest. And by repeat, I mean, |
| 0:58.1 | not the special episode guests like Catherine and Susie, but a repeat guest for a regular |
| 1:03.8 | formatted episode. But she is talking about a totally different topic than she covered the last time |
| 1:09.3 | she was on. Sarah Hildreth joined me on |
| 1:12.1 | episode 34 back in October of 2019 to talk about books in the classroom. But today she's going to be |
| 1:18.9 | going behind the scenes about what it is like to be a judge for the Aspen Words Literary Prize. |
| 1:25.0 | Sarah is known on Instagram as Fiction Matter matters and has a blog of the same name. |
| 1:29.4 | She also co-hosts the novel pairing podcast where she and her co-host Chelsea pair classics with |
| 1:34.4 | contemporary books. Prior to this year, Sarah taught high school English at an all-girls |
| 1:39.3 | school in Colorado, and she lives in Denver with her husband and her dog. Welcome back, Sarah. Thank you so much for |
| 1:46.3 | having me. I'm very honored to be your first repeat guest. If y'all are new to the show and have |
| 1:51.9 | not listened to Sarah's first episode, go back and do that. It's so interesting how she talks about |
| 1:57.2 | books in the classroom, teaching the classics, what sort of high school |
| 2:01.0 | girls are reading now outside of school. |
| 2:04.8 | I'm just going to have to keep finding interesting book things to do so you keep asking me |
| 2:09.3 | back on, Sarah. |
... |
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