Sneak peek: judging the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize

June 5th 2023

About Helen Rosser Helen has experience selecting adult stock as part of her work in public libraries, as well as working in academic libraries at the University of Birmingham. Prior to this she also worked in non-fiction publishing. She strongly believes in the benefits of reading for pleasure for wellbeing, and enjoys thrillers, literary fiction and whatever happens to be the blockbuster hit of the moment. MEET OUR TEAM!

Launched to empower writers, promote literacy and advance the adventure writing genre, the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize is one of the most exciting awards in fiction. Never one to shy away from an adventure, our adult librarian Helen has returned to the judging panel for the 2023 awards and shares her insight into this year's incredible shortlist. 

Behind the scenes 

Every January, librarians from across the country are invited to join a panel to help judge the Best Published Novel category of the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize. I partook in 2021 and was lucky enough to be selected again for the 2023 panel. It’s an experience I can highly recommend to any interested librarians out there. 

April saw the 15 chosen librarians gathering in the Wilbur & Niso Smith Foundation’s offices in Finsbury Park, London, to battle it out creating long and shortlists and enjoy a tasty lunch. We’d all read and rated our allocation prior to the panel meeting, so we fought for a place on the lists for our favourite reads. As well as considering the communities we represented, the awards’ organisers provided a list of criteria, including originality, how likely we are to recommend it to others, and whether it’s a page-turner.

The award’s slogan is ‘an adventure for everyone’, and having a judging panel working across a range of settings helped ensure the listed novels fulfil this promise. Panellists came from huge inner-city public libraries to tiny community-run rural libraries. People had travelled from North and South, from coastal communities and the most inland points of the UK (me, Birmingham!). Each librarian therefore had a specific range of borrowers in mind, whose reading criteria would have to be fulfilled by any potential winner.

Shortlisted authors include Jenny Tinghui Zhang, Priscilla Morris and Paddy Crewe

About the submissions

This year there were a total of 95 eligible submissions from 41 different publishing imprints. Fortunately, none of the panel was asked to read them all! We’d each been allocated a selection of around 15 titles, ensuring all the books were read by several panellists. Of authors who specified a gender 15 identified as female, 36 identified as male, and 42 were left blank. Writers hailed from around the world, including Africa, America, Canada, England, France, Iran, Ireland, New Zealand, Scotland and Wales.

The quality of submissions this year was immense, with a seemingly wider range of stories recognising themselves as adventure. Many famous, top-quality authors who submitted didn’t even make the longlist, as everyone had to sacrifice some titles they enjoyed to make sure the ones they loved made the cut.

Since the longlist was announced in May, we’ve all been able to celebrate and promote the eclectic range of titles vying for this year’s title. I'm pleased to say my personal favourite from my allocation - The Half Life of Valery K by Natasha Pulley - has made the shortlist, which was announced on 1st June. 

A smaller panel of adventure experts will now choose the winner, alongside a public vote. This will be announced at an awards ceremony at the Royal Geographical Society on Wednesday 18th October 2023, and the winner will receive £10,000. In the meantime I’ll be working my way through the rest of the titles, and recommending to others this exciting selection of ripping yarns!

Helen's personal favourite

The Half Life of Valery K  | Natasha Pulley In 1960s Soviet Union, Valery Kolkhanov is transported from the gulag to serve out his sentence in a secret nuclear research facility, under his old PhD professor. Valery tries to piece together the truth behind the secrets and lies surrounding the radioactive research project. Natasha Pulley is a previous winner of the Betty Trask award, and this original cold war story is another hit. With the mystery of a crime novel, the intrigue of an espionage and the denouement of a thriller, all wrapped up in a historical novel based on harrowing real life events, it's a gripping read suitable for very wide readership. Recommend to all!   DISCOVER