Let us begin by reaffirming a core truth: nobody in the Sand Fox Award holds extra voting power. Neither myself nor any of the young colleagues attending our weekly strategy meetings possess a privileged ballot. Each of us casts exactly one vote—no more and no less than any other participating adolescent across the country for every book read. Even if I fall completely in love with a shortlisted title, my vote will never count twice simply because I sit on the coordinating committee.
The real distinction lies in operational labor and continuous advocacy. We do not simply cast a vote and walk away. Ballots and candid reviews are systematically logged on the Sand Fox portal (sandfox.ir), and our working sessions are filled with candid debates on expanding outreach: how can we invite adolescents outside major urban centers into this literary conversation? Which evocative image should lead an introductory video reel? And how do we convey news of this independent prize to young people who have never set foot inside a specialty bookstore?
This participatory process is inherently organic and debating-heavy. An organizer may present a proposal with supreme confidence, only to have three peers point out why it fails to resonate with adolescents. Conversely, an unassuming concept might undergo collective refinement until it becomes a dynamic initiative everyone rallies behind. Often, our sessions conclude with deliberations still raging and definitive answers waiting for next week.
During one of our recent gatherings, we agreed that instead of relying solely on digital posts, we would physically carry the official Sand Fox posters directly to brick-and-mortar booksellers along Tehran’s historic Enghelab Street. Scrolling past an image online is effortless; standing before a veteran independent bookseller with a poster rolled under your arm and explaining within two minutes what the Sand Fox Award represents—and why adolescent readers aged 11 to 18 deserve absolute authority to choose Iran’s premier literature—is a profoundly human encounter.
Ultimately, a literary vote is far more than a digitized number. Beside every submission lies a personal reading journey. When you examine reader commentaries, choices reveal fascinating nuances that resist clean statistical charts. One adolescent adored a story yet wrestled with its open-ended denouement; another declined to give top marks yet contributed an incisive reflection that forced the rest of us to reconsider our assumptions.
We continue asking ourselves: how do we break outside the comfortable algorithmic bubble of confirmed book lovers and reach teenagers who read privately, suspecting their perspective doesn’t matter? In the Sand Fox initiative, founded through BookCity’s civic mission, our essential work is to fling open that welcoming threshold. Everyone has only one vote, but when that vote is tethered to active civic dialogue, it enriches our entire reading culture.
