November 9, 2022
Judge Daniel Mack on What Judges Look for in PROSE Awards Entries
Interviews With 2023 PROSE Judges
As we approach the end of the 2023 PROSE Awards entry period, we have our final piece in our PROSE Judges Spotlight series, in which we ask veteran judge Daniel Mack for his thoughts on what makes for a winning PROSE entry.
Judge Daniel Mack is an Associate Dean of Libraries for Collection Strategies and Services at the University of Maryland in College Park, where he provides leadership in policy creation and implementation, strategic planning, program development, and assessment for library collections. He has advanced degrees in library science and ancient history and has taught college courses in ancient history, Roman archaeology, classical literature, and Latin grammar, all of which lend themselves to judging PROSE entries.
Association of American Publishers: What do you look for in a submission?
Daniel Mack: A successful PROSE submission is a work that sheds new light on a scholarly or professional topic while also exhibiting outstanding production values. Whether the target audience consists of general readers or specialized researchers, a winning submission will employ clear writing, effective arguments, and appropriate ancillary matter to make its case.
A successful submission will combine original scholarship with exceptional readability and excellence in production.
AAP: How can libraries and scholarly publishers work together to highlight best in classical research?
Daniel Mack: Libraries and scholarly publishers are natural partners to promote excellent research in the classics. Librarians work at the hub of interdisciplinarity, and classical research is a highly interdisciplinary field, combining the study of history, literature, philology, and material culture.
Because they support faculty, students, researchers, and general readers, libraries understand the varying needs of these audiences. Librarians can work with publishers to promote excellent classical research that supports the multiple intersections of these disciplines and readers.
AAP: Do you have a favorite classical text?
Daniel Mack: My personal favorite classical text is the Aeneid of Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro, 70-19 BCE). Published at the dawn of the Roman Empire in the late first century BCE, the Aeneid immediately became the national epic of Rome. Virgil’s great work is both sophisticated and elusive, and open to a variety of contradictory interpretations, and has been a major influence on Western culture for two millennia, inspiring writers, artists, and composers like Dante, Shakespeare, Purcell, and Voltaire.
Submissions for the 2023 PROSE Awards close next week, Friday, November 18th. Learn more about the PROSE Awards here.