October 10: An Explanation of Why I Didn't Win

Now that I've defended Alice Munro's selection as the winner of the 2013 Nobel Prize for Literature, let me explain why I didn't win this year.

You see, once the Swedish Academy has narrowed down the list of candidates for the Nobel to five, they spend the summer reading those five writers' works.  In order to preserve the secrecy of the process, the shortlisted writers are often given code names by the Academy, to avoid possible leaks of information.  Thus, William Faulkner might have been called Bubba, and Pearl S. Buck was possibly known as Buck Rogers.

Assuming I was on the shortlist with Munro, her code name could have been "A. M.," and my code name was probably "M. A."  Well, when it came down to the selection of the actual winner, "M. A." certainly defeated "A. M." in the vote.  However, some dyslexic clerk at the Swedish Academy inverted the letters when typing up the results.  Thus, instead of my name being announced this morning, Alice Munro's name was spoken.

It was a clerical error.

But Saint Marty isn't going to ask for a recount.

She's just lucky I'm not in a bad mood today