What's the role of a writer in tense times?

Here’s a slightly different take on book-award reporting.

The Aspen Words Literary Prize is working to cull its longlist down to a shortlist for the award, which goes to “an influential work of fiction that illuminates a vital contemporary issue and demonstrates the transformative power of literature on thought and culture.”

In the meantime, the literary center that administers the prize turned to some of the authors in the running and asked them to cover the news, so to speak, rather than be in the news.

See how Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah (Friday Black), R. O. Kwon (The Incendiaries), Tayari Jones (An American Marriage), and others view their roles as authors in a fraught political and social environment.

And if thought-provoking fiction is exactly what you seek right now, this is the longlist for the Aspen Words Literary Prize.