Pulitzer Project comes to a close, prompts reflection on purpose
Published 8:28 am Thursday, December 26, 2019
- Star Photo/Amber Wadovick Leona Charleigh Holman said while the Pulitzer Project had some flaws, the result was well worth the effort.
At the end of a year-long journey through award-winning literature, Leona Charleigh Holman said there are things she wished she could have done better.
“As the project went along, I started to fall behind,” Holman said. Worrying about her end of December deadline to finish 89 Pulitzer-winning books of fiction, she said she was no longer reading them in order to enjoy them, but rather reading so she could finish it and move on to the next.
“It became work,” she said.
With nine books unaccounted for as 2019 comes to a close, she said she would prefer reading only a select few books if it meant she could take her time with them, especially if she could choose what she was reading.
“People should read the books they are interested in,” Holman said. “Fiction is something I enjoy, and I do not see that changing.”
Despite what on paper looks like a failed project, Holman said the effort was not in vain.
“It was so worth it,” she said. “It was worth having the library standing beside and behind me. It is always nice to see people who genuinely care.”
The Elizabethton/Carter County Library has hosted monthly book club meetings on various Pulitzer books throughout the year, which she said has sparked remarkable conversations. She said this club plans to continue to meet into 2020.
If she had a second chance, she said she would do a better job of removing various distractions that got in the way early on.
“I think that is a takeaway for everything in life,” Holman said. “It is putting yourself in an environment that helps you succeed.”
The challenge itself of reading 89 books in a year, some of them as large as epics, she said, was great.
“I enjoyed the challenge of reading a very focused collection of books,” she said. “As writers, we all sit down at a blank page, and we create magic. They all started with a blank page.”
In the future, she said she would do a broader focus of novels to choose from for different challenges. In addition, she said she plans to read the remaining nine Pulitzers as well as 2019’s Pulitzer when they announce it in April.
“It has been a pleasure and a challenge,” Holman said. “Now I know I can do it.”
