This is part of my ongoing series on using Awards Lists as a RA tool. Click here for all posts in the series in reverse chronological order. Click here for the first post which outlines the details how to use awards lists as a RA tool.
The National Book Awards will be announced on Wednesday evening. Per usual, I spent my time alerting you when the long-lists came out so that you could get the most out of his award as a resource.
However, I wanted to use this time, on the eve of the announcement, to share this report from "Public Books" which looked at 35 years of data about the award itself.
Please take a look at this report whether you care about the National Book Award or not because it is a great look at how the entire fiction landscape has slowly gotten more diverse. As the award committees have become more diverse (in every way), the titles they have considered have diversified as well.
It is a great example of how when you put in the work, consciously recognize that we live in a world where systemic oppression is real, even when it is not done in a hateful or conscious way, and then put in the effort to intentionally dismantle it, change can happen.
Yes, it seems slow. Yes, it can be frustrating. And yes, there is a lot more to do. But data crunches like this show that progress is being made. We are moving in the right direction. I hope this inspires people to not only keep going, but do more.
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