Predicting the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction via Electric Literature

The Pulitzer Prizes, including the prize for fiction, will be announced on Monday, May 8th, at 3pm Eastern. This is an award that does not release a long-list, as a result, what people think might win is always fodder for discussion in literary circles. It could be anything! Well, anything from the time frame.

For example, earlier this week, Electric Literature had this great article "Predicting the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction." As someone who read many books that could win as part of this past year's selection committee for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellent in Fiction and Nonfiction, I am especially interested this year. Most of the books mentioned in the essay are titles I have read. 

But for the rest of you, this is also a fun piece to use as an idea to build excitement for the Pulitzer Prize announcement. 

Take this article and use it to start a Pulitzer Prize display and/or lists online or on social media right now. Make a display of the many past award winners in books, both fiction, nonfiction, poetry, drama, and even music. Click here for easy past winners access.

But also, make a smaller display of the current front runners, from the Electric Lit piece. Maybe include the ACM finalists as well (some are mentioned in the article). And then, ask people to cast their own votes. They can vote for one of the titles in the article or do a write-in for their choice. Make this interactive part of the display fun and promise to reveal the library winner along with the actual winner on Monday. You can have the official Pulitzer winner and the Library one. 

This is a display that will draw interest and participation in the building and online, especially on social media where people can vote with a comment. But it will also showcase that the library is a place that has so many of these winners in a variety of categories.

Plus, if you get the display up before the weekend, you will already have it up and ready to go when the announcement is made on Monday. As people come in that day or the next few after, you are already there with information and titles about something in the news. You look like you are "listening" to them because you have anticipated what they were thinking about reading.

Plus come, Monday afternoon, you will have more titles to add. And it can stay up for at least another week or two. It's a win all around. 

With the announcement being Monday afternoon,  I'll post about the winners on Tuesday with commentary and RA implications specific to those winners, but for now, you can start making displays of contenders and previous winners to get people excited.